In these times of packed international schedules and short memory spans, the just concluded India-Sri Lanka Test series may live on for longer in fans’ minds than usual.

As mystery spinner Ajantha Mendis outdid the hype around him to finish with a historic haul, he would have created several blips on radars around the cricketing world. Tapes of the series will now be a ‘must-have’ for coaches and computer analysts around the world whenever a the next series against Sri Lanka is around the corner.

The Mendis footage can be divided into two categories: ‘How to play’ and ‘How not to play’. The first section will mainly feature Virender Sehwag while the second category will have a collection of batsmen in different states of discomfort against his variations.

In a different league

But, while Sehwag may have scored 70 runs of his 201 at Galle, he doesn’t really provide the template to face Mendis. Sehwag’s unique batting is tough for others to follow, and despite the flamboyant opener’s success in Galle, Mendis remained a puzzle for the rest of the Indian batsmen.

The early reading when Sehwag was launching his assault was that ‘using your feet’ was the best option. But as batsmen failed on more than one occasion, they realised it was futile to leave the crease without picking the ball.

As you would expect, Sehwag’s approach to picking Mendis was quite different from what experts have suggested over the last month. Gundappa Vishwanath had said before the series that batsmen had to pick Mendis from his hand, and Gautam Gambhir — one of the few players who seemed relatively comfortable against the spinner — did just that. But Sehwag still insisted on picking Mendis from the pitch.

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