He scored 92 runs in five innings in IPL 2025.
Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) and Sri Lanka all-rounder Kamindu Mendis once again displayed why you can’t write him off from any format of cricket. Mendis put up yet another strong performance, smashing a quick-fire fifty against the minnows Zimbabwe in the first ODI of the two-match series in Harare on Friday.
Put to bat, Sri Lanka were thrown some thunderbolts by pacers Richard Ngarava and Blessing Muzarabani in the powerplay. The visitors managed just 29 runs in the first 10 overs and lost Nishan Madushka for a duck. The spinners, Sikandar Raza and Sean Williams, further squeezed their top order in the middle overs, reducing them to 161/5 after 36.1 overs, with a run rate below 4.5 an over.
And then entered Kamindu Mendis. The southpaw batter displayed some smart hitting to turn things around. He didn’t waste a single one and brought his ramp shots out to up the ante through the course of the death overs. Kamindu played most of his big shots into the leg side and was quick between the wickets. They didn’t play a single dot delivery between the 43rd to 48th overs; how relentlessly they took charge of the Zimbabwe bowling attack. The southpaw batter reached his third fifty with a single off the 30th ball of his innings, but not before smashing Gwandu for a four and a six on the previous two balls. He lost his wicket on the final ball of the innings, courtesy of Ngarva’s pinpoint middle-stump yorker.
Mendis received huge support from Janith Liyanage, who smashed a brute 70 off just 47 balls, striking at 148.93. He stitched a mammoth 137-run partnership off just 83 balls. As a result, Sri Lanka posted an above-par score of 298/6 from a situation where 250 was looking too far. Ngarava was the best of Zimbabwe’s bowlers, picking up 2 for 34 from his 7.4 overs. He didn’t complete his spell because he had to walk off with some discomfort four balls into the 43rd over.
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Sunrisers Hyderabad arguably had the best top 5 among all teams in the IPL 2025. But their main problem lay particularly with number seven. The Pat Cummins-led side tried five different players at the position, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Pat Cummins, Mendis, and Abhishek Verma, but no batter could provide the expected returns. The most successful batter at number seven for SRH was Abhinav Manohar, who scored 61 runs in five innings, averaging just 12.20 and a strike rate of 100. He scored 92 runs in five innings, averaging 30.66 at a strike rate of 133.33, including a match-winning 32-run knock against Chennai Super Kings (CSK).
Hence, the one-time champions would look to find a player who will do the job for them at number seven. With every innings Mendes will strengthen his retention case ahead of the IPL 2026, scheduled for later this year. With one more ODI, a three-match T20I series, and the Asia Cup 2025 coming up, a couple more strong performances down the order would further bolster his retention case. His bowling will add up to it.
