Splendids’ Super ‘Overs’

Amy S put forward an interesting question on my last post. How did we feel about Ajantha Mendis being whipped around in the super over.

To answer that question we have to go back about 2 months. Splendid had the world at his finger tips. People were talking about him eclipsing Murali. Life was good for Ajantha. Then something happened which none of us could explain. Mendis’s mystery seemed to have deserted him. After he raced to 50 wickets in ODIs and tests. His last 9 games only gave him a handful of wickets.

Mendis’s form vanished. Then he left for Pakistan, hoping to possibly regain some of the momentum that had propelled him super stardom and earned an unhealthy obsession from us.

Bombs.

Grenades.

AK-47s.

A haze of confusion when we heard Mendis was hit in the head. We were literally in a daze. Mendis had shrapnel removed from his head. Twice.  That is shocking and bad ass at the same time.

Within weeks he was turning up for his inter-prov team. Maybe something inside Mendis changed or maybe doctors implanted bionic super gadgetry in him, whatever it was Mendis slowly recaptured his form. Playing a big role in getting his team to inter-prov 2020 finals and was in the top 6 wicket takers in the competition.

Last night his magic was back. For 24 balls I watched the boy wonder do his thing. The mojo was back. The ball was coming out with a fizz. The variations were all there. Smith, Pathan, Jadeja, Mascarenas all had trouble figuring out which way it was going. And More importantly he played a big part in getting Kolkata back in the game and picked up two big wickets in one over.

So we are actually quite happy to see Splendid bowling and doing well. It was missed.

How Buchanan and co left him out of the first two games is beyond us.

I mean its the IPL. Every descision is a big one. Specially for a team whose motto is ‘to do, to fight, to poop and to win’ One of those is not really part of the motto. Can you guess which one? Here is a clue to start you off – it has to do with them being bottom 2nd in the table.

5 Comments

  1. scorpicity said:

    How stupid of the buch to not feature Mendis in the first one anyway… The legendary Mendis will be baa-baa-ck.

    April 24, 2009
    Reply
  2. adverbin said:

    Mendis should have been playing from the initial match itself. He bowled brilliantly in the last match. However, it was stupid of whichever captain/strategist/??? to bowl him in the super over. A nice attacking spinner is not really a good choice for this situation.

    April 25, 2009
    Reply
  3. Amy said:

    Good post. And everyone’s right, Mendis should have been there from the start.

    April 25, 2009
    Reply
  4. damith said:

    Cheers guys. Good to see splendid getting plenty of support. Lets hope he keeps up his good form and destroys more batting line ups in the IPL

    April 25, 2009
    Reply
  5. maya said:

    it was just bad luck man…….. things would have been totally different if the bloody guy at longoff had taken the catch in the second ball…. if pathan had gone we would be talking great things about mendiya right now…..
    he had a nice game…… taking the two most important wickets in the opposition…..
    should have played from the first one……
    keep going mendis…..

    April 26, 2009
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