Kagiso Rabada and Mohommed Siraj could have been wearing their Test whites. By the end of the powerplay, they had bowled three overs each, and Sunrisers Hyderabad were reduced to 34 for 4. Somehow, they had outdone the Gujarat Titans batting line-up from the first innings – they had been reduced to 34 for 2 themselves. Wickets in hand allowed B Sai Sudarsan (61 off 44) and Washington Sundar (50 off 33) to mount a comeback for GT. On the other hand, SRH let a tricky chase of 168 slip from their grasp, folding for 86 in 14.5 overs.

At the toss, GT captain Shubman Gill said that the pitch in Ahmedabad looked like “a better wicket than we have had in the past couple of matches.” He was dismissed in the third over, off a rare mistimed swipe across the line. He had misjudged a pitch that turned out to be one of this IPL’s most treacherous ones: deliveries stuck in the surface, the new ball jagged both ways, and scoring options were hard to find square of the wicket.

An endless battery of tall GT fast bowlers – rounded out by Jason Holder and Impact Player Prasidh Krishna in the middle overs – kept striking in the chase. At the end of it, GT rose to the top of the table with 16 points.

Pat Cummins unlocked the secret to bowling on this surface early: he pushed it in on a hard length, and kept swinging the new ball away from both Sudharsan and Gill. But the first two wickets for SRH came from elsewhere. Praful Hinge found himself back in the SRH side, in place of Harsh Dubey to give them an extra pace option.

Hinge mimicked the Cummins line-and-length early on, and tempted Gill into a misjudged on-drive. In the final over of the powerplay, Jos Buttler realised he could not go big in the ‘V’, so he tried to scoop Hinge behind the wicket instead. All he managed was an edge to the keeper.

Hinge’s twin strikes consigned GT to 34 for 2, their lowest powerplay score this season.

If ever there was a pitch suited to Sudharsan’s brand of T20 batting, it was this. He kept pouncing on the deliveries that erroneously landed in the slot, and pushed the others around to turn over the strike. Nishant Sindhu, who made 22 off 14, kept him company at the other end through the middle overs. Sindhu stayed deep in his crease and played drives and cuts, both batters biding their time.

Sensing a breakthrough, Cummins brought himself back into the attack in the 10th over to bowl his third. He rifled in a delivery outside off, full but rearing off the pitch at Sindhu. He could only mistime a lofted drive to long-off.

Cummins ended with figures of 1 for 20 in the 16th. Just an over later, Sai Sudharsan – who had brought up his sixth half-century of the season – opted for another scoop off Sakib Hussain. The full delivery took off the bottom of his bat, and Hinge gobbled it up at short third.

After years of disappointing returns, off-field controversies, lengthy suspensions and a bad-boy image among cricket fans, Kusal Mendis seems to have finally turned a corner. With a young daughter now at the centre of his world, Mendis appears to have realized that there’s more to life than pubs and nightclubs. The hours in the gym have increased significantly and so has his commitment to the game.

The turning point came in England last year. Every player dreams of playing a Test match at Lord’s, the Home of Cricket. Mendis, one of the senior players in the side, was dropped for the big game and it hurt him deeply.

Not many approved of the move. Former captain Duleep Mendis called it a poor decision and several others echoed similar sentiments. But the selectors knew exactly what they were doing. They wanted to prick Mendis’ ego and jolt him out of his comfort zone.

He returned for the next Test in a new role as wicketkeeper-batsman and Sri Lanka went onto win the game. Pathum Nissanka’s century grabbed most of the headlines, but it was Mendis who laid the platform. Chasing only 219, he counter-attacked aggressively, forcing England to spread the field and eventually playing right into Sri Lanka’s hands.

Since then, he has been a revelation in limited-overs cricket as well, forging a formidable opening partnership with Nissanka. His wicketkeeping too has been spotless.

People may have plenty to say about Mendis, but one thing that has never been in doubt is that he is a team man. He has been more than willing to do the hard yards while younger players like Pathum Nissanka, Charith Asalanka and Kamindu Mendis enjoy the limelight.

Such has been his form in the PSL that he finished as the tournament’s second highest run scorer, playing a major role in helping his franchise win the title.

Against that backdrop, the national selectors are contemplating handing him the white-ball captaincy. But Mendis already has enough on his plate as opener and wicketkeeper. Why burden him further with captaincy responsibilities?

Charith Asalanka, meanwhile, has been groomed for leadership since the age of 17. The selectors already blundered by taking the T20 captaincy away from him. Now, with the 50-over World Cup a year away, they seem keen to strip him of the ODI captaincy too.

Their previous choice for T20 captaincy, Dasun Shanaka, proved uninspiring. True, Asalanka can sometimes get under your skin with his excesses. During the recent NSL final, he was reportedly fined a significant portion of his match fee following an altercation with the umpires. But if you have entrusted a man with a job, then back him to do it.

One is reminded of what happened during the 2023 World Cup. Mendis began the tournament in blazing fashion with scores of 76 and 123 in the first two games. From the third match onwards, however, he was handed the captaincy after Shanaka’s injury and his form nosedived. He failed to score a single half-century in the next seven innings.

Ironically, the same man who now chairs the selection panel was the architect of that decision as well. Some lessons, it seems, are never learnt.

by Rex Clementine