The number behind Kamindu Mendis, Sri Lanka’s new batting sensation

It is the most wondrous purple patch in cricket this year. Nine months in, it is still flowing and translating into one of the most extraordinary starts ever to a Test career.

Kamindu Mendis’s second wind in Test cricket began in Bangladesh in March this year. Handed a lower-order spot, two years after his solitary Test outing, Mendis’s breakout display ran a streak of 102, 164, 92* and 9 – in Sylhet and Chattogram, with successive hundreds batting at No. 7 and 8. On his Test debut in Galle in 2022, the left-hander scored a half-century at No. 6 in his maiden innings against Australia.

Mendis has come a long way since his teenage years when he flooded social media for his ambidextrous bowling. His limited-overs game is still in the works, but batting in whites is rapidly becoming his forte.

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Eye-catching performances on the recent tour to England have demanded a promotion. On Wednesday, back in his hometown of Galle, Mendis stood tall against a ravaging New Zealand attack and relished his first innings at No. 5.

After a top-middle-order wobble, Mendis hit his fourth hundred, falling just short of guiding the team to stumps on Day 1.

Most runs after first 11 Test innings Player Span Inns Runs 100s Avg Career Runs Span Avg 100s Everton Weekes (WI) 1948-49 11 968 5 88 4455 1948-1958 58.62 15 Vinod Kambli (IND) 1993-94 11 937 4 93.7 1084 1993-1995 54.2 4 Sunil Gavaskar (IND) 1971 11 888 4 111 10122 1971-1987 51.12 34 Herbert Sutcliffe (ENG) 1924-25 11 872 4 87.2 4555 1924-1935 60.73 16 Frank Worrell (WI) 1948-51 11 870 3 96.67 3860 1948-1963 49.49 9 Don Bradman (AUS) 1928-30 11 861 4 86.1 6996 1928-1948 99.94 29 Harry Brook (ENG)* 2022-23 11 818 4 81.8 1558 2022- 53.72 5 Kamindu Mendis (SL)* 2022-24 11 809 4 80.9

For a struggling Lankan unit, expectations from the 25-year-old are growing with each outing. A closer inspection would tell that Mendis’s glut of runs may not just come in this one glorious stretch. He has managed the red ball with tremendous ease throughout his First-Class career, and this phase with the national side only seems to be an extension.

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Mendis is only the eighth player ever to aggregate more than 800 runs in their first 11 innings in the format. That is a Bradmanesque start.

Sri Lanka’s Kamindu Mendis celebrates his fifty runs on the first day of the first cricket test match between New Zealand and Sri Lanka in Galle, Sri Lanka, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP/PTI) Sri Lanka’s Kamindu Mendis celebrates his fifty runs on the first day of the first cricket test match between New Zealand and Sri Lanka in Galle, Sri Lanka, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP/PTI)

Early impressions sometimes go a long way in predicting the future of a Test cricketer. If one looks at the select chart of batters who have blazed through their early days in Test cricket before Mendis, it tells something.

It is a pantheon that has seen a sizable void between its last batch of inductees and the latest joiners. Of the seven batters who secured better Test starts than Mendis, only one (Vinod Kambli) debuted in the 1990s. None of them were from the two decades between 2000-2020. England’s Harry Brook, who debuted in 2022, stands seventh on the list, with Everton Weekes, Sunil Gavaskar, Don Bradman, Herbert Sutcliffe, Kambli and Frank Worell ahead of him.

Highest First-Class average (min. 2000 runs) Inns Runs HS Avg 100 50 Don Bradman 338 28067 452* 95.14 117 69 Yashasvi Jaiswal 44 2912 265 72.8 12 6 Vijay Merchant 234 13470 359* 71.64 45 52 George Headley 164 9921 344* 69.86 33 44 Ajay Sharma 166 10120 259* 67.46 38 36 Sarfaraz Khan 74 4183 301* 66.39 14 14 William Ponsford 235 13819 437 65.18 47 43 William Woodfull 245 13388 284 64.99 49 58 Kamindu Mendis 77 4545 200* 64.01 17 23

Only nine batters have reached four centuries faster than Mendis. The left-hander also equalled Pakistan’s Saud Shakeel in recording a fifty-plus score in seven consecutive Tests from his debut. Among Sri Lankans, only Kumar Sangakkara has had a better streak in Tests, having registered fifties in nine (joint record) successive games.

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Fifty First-Class matches into his career, Mendis’s average of 64.01 is the seventh-highest on the all-time charts headed by the imperious Bradman, who accumulated 28,067 runs at 95.10.

Mendis’s smooth start has also shown his ability to adapt swiftly to overseas conditions. Before the Bangladesh tour, over 96 percent of his 3,000-plus First-Class runs were compiled on Lankan shores. In early September, Mendis returned home from England as Sri Lanka’s highest run-scorer, scoring 267 runs at 53.40 in his maiden trip there.

By the end of the second Test against the Kiwis later this month, Mendis would have most likely become Sri Lanka’s highest run-scorer this World Test Championship cycle, ushering in his 26th birthday as the brightest long-format prospect from the island nation since the retirements of Sangakkara and Mahela Jayawardene.

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