Kamindu Mendis was batting on 182 with his namesake Kusal Mendis when Dhananjaya de Silva signaled them to return, declaring the innings as the scoreboard read 602. 18 runs short of a double century is not too far off, perhaps he should have allowed to breach the 200-run mark and add such a huge personal milestone to his bag. Unfair it would have been of Sri Lanka, had Kamindu not achieved an even greater milestone at that point. A record that equaled him to someone as incredible as Don Bradman. The maximum over Rachin Ravindra’s head pushed him to his 182* score and dragged him past his 1000 Test runs, which he was able to do in only 13 innings. Only two batters made their first 1000 runs faster than the Sri Lankan batter.
Out of these 1000 runs, 943 came this year, with five tons and three half-tons. The numbers might make it too overwhelming to understand the player Mendis is. Can he bat? His stroke-making is worthy of the Louvre. Can he bowl? Of course. Left or right, you make the call. He can roll both arms over. All of these things that he does are strictly standardized as per the no-nonsense strategy that he has. He is not here to do the job only but do it with turning as less heads as possible. Hundreds are fifties, fifties are thirties for him when he gets going but even they need to be done as ‘unproblematically’ as possible.
Across venues, he has been indomitable this year. It was his brilliant form in T20 cricket that helped him force his way into the pure format of the game. Before this year, he only had one Test cap. In that Test match against Australia at his home ground and the same venue where he reached his 1000 runs, Kamindu Mendis scored 61 runs in the first innings helping Sri Lanka to an innings win. However, he was dropped shortly after to make way for other more senior players.
But little did anyone, most of all Kamindu himself, knew that his return at the same ground would one day announce to the world the incoming of a new beast. For some reason, it’s more exciting to see a talent rise through the ranks in red-ball format than the shorter ones. Perhaps it’s because Test cricket acts as a litmus test to indicate the mettle a player is made of. You can not fluke your way through a tough and tolling five days. Especially when the conditions offered to you are of Galle. Even if it is your home ground, for a batter Galle tends to be quite frugal. But Kamindu is the jack-of-all-trades. He knows his ways around things that are no less than a quagmire for others.
That he reached 1000 runs in just 13 innings might seem like one of those exaggerated stats that are presented without any context to prove a point. Oh, there is Bradman on the list xyz player is approaching? Let’s make it a big thing without thinking that cricket has evolved over the years. But if you know how coldly the 25-year-old watches the bowlers from under his helmet, you would know that it’s not a mere coincidence he now holds the same record as the greats of the game. Although it’s a possibility, and a very strong one at that, that Kamindu himself was not aware of the fact that he is nearing this record when he was batting today, it came more as a prize for the way he has played in Test than as mere figures to illuminate his stats. Just a quietly as he would have liked. Just as no-nonsensibly as he would have preferred.
