Ajantha Medis has been a mysterious operator who’s bamboozled several batsmen since his emergence on the international stage. His style of operation has been full of uniqueness and fascination, leaving one in a scrambled mindset to indicate actually what he does with the ball and does so well.
His stats speak volumes but one can question, are certain teams beginning to get used to what he does and for those sides is his unpredictability previously now becoming “readable” as Ian Chappell raised during a commentary stint yesterday. Well earlier in the year he appeared to be harmless against Pak. Whether more teams start finding this ease when playing him can only take time to figure out. However, it is only expected that he will go through some difficult patches as many classy professionals do or have. But whether he will be able to repeat the heroics he did in mid 2008 remains a question many will raise. This will really test his character and ability.
However yesterday RSA a team who hasn’t seen much of him still seem to encounter uncertainty when facing his mixture of unorthodox but effective variations. He picked up some big scalps and bowled his overs at priceless rates. As a result Sri Lanka have started their CT campaign with a “bang”. They as a whole seem a flexible in-form unit whom have a worthy shout of winning the competition as Dilshan continued to flourish with his limited overs success.
Meanwhile yesterday Pak cruised to victory against an inexperienced weakened WI side. The seamers operated with skill and frontline initiative to rattle the WI top order. Hats of to Miller whose lower order contributions helped WI achieve something reasonable from a situation of disaster. Despite this late order flourish and slight top order struggle Pak won end of story: “All well that ends well”. But undoubtedly they will need to brush up in some aspects to beat the big powers in Aus and Ind i.e. top order will need to “click”. Nazir should be used lower down the order and not against the new ball. This must be stressed that his technique is not advanced enough to open at international level but lower down he will simply be able to dominate proceedings in his free scoring manner such as when the ball has lost its movement and the platform has been set. Here he will be a handful and be able to emulate that approach of sheer uniqueness like he did in the 2nd edition of the Icl and other domestic competitions where he simply became a mouth-watering dominant prospect. This is wear an adjustment needs to realised. He is only a valid opener in T20 and nowhere else.
Umar Akmal showed good temperament and maturity along with the new watchful style of Afridi to help Pak cross the line maturely. Now as Sept 26th approaches let the battle of the titan’s excitement unleash in a virtual knock out scenario.
I must also mention that the shortness of the tournament is all but positive as it maintains the excitement and competitiveness throughout rather then dragging on pointlessly for several weeks. The introduced structure makes each match seem full of meaning.
