The New Sensation....AJANTA MENDIS

Ajanta Mendis ( not Ajantha Mendis). Ajanta's full name is Balapuwaduge Ajantha Winslo Mendis. 23 year old Ajanta was born on 11th March 1985 in Moratuwa, SriLanka.
Apart from the National team of Sri Lanka, Ajanta has also played for Kolkatta Knight Riders in IPL Twenty20, Sri Lanka Army, Wayamba.
His Batting style is Right-hand bat and more importantly his Bowling style Right-arm slow-medium ( and this description hardly does justice to his bowling style).

Full name: Balapuwaduge Ajantha Winslo Mendis

Born: March 11, 1985, Moratuwa
Current age: 23 years 118 days
Major teams: Sri Lanka, Kolkata Knight Riders, Sri Lanka Army, Wayamba
Batting style: Right-hand bat
Bowling style: Right-arm slow-medium

Batting and fielding averages

	Mat	Inns	NO	Runs	HS	Ave	BF	SR	100	50	4s	6s	Ct	St
ODIs	8	4	3	46	15*	46.00	29	158.62	0	0	6	0	1	0
First-class	19	30	0	387	37	12.90	644	60.09	0	0	37	3	9	0
List A	27	19	6	373	71*	28.69	372	100.26	0	2	36	7	5	0
Twenty20	7	6	2	15	9	3.75	21	71.42	0	0	2	0	3	0

Bowling averages

	Mat	Inns	Balls	Runs	Wkts	BBI	BBM	Ave	Econ	SR	4w	5w	10
ODIs	8	7	336	205	20	6/13	6/13	10.25	3.66	16.8	1	2	0
First-class	19	35	3654	1615	111	7/37	10/74	14.54	2.65	32.9	10	7	1
List A	27	24	1130	629	57	6/13	6/13	11.03	3.33	19.8	3	2	0
Twenty20	7	7	138	122	6	2/15	2/15	20.33	5.30	23.0	0	0	0

Career statistics

ODI debut

West Indies v Sri Lanka at Port of Spain, Apr 10, 2008

Although classified as a right-arm, slow-medium bowler, Ajantha Mendis is a spinner who bowls a mixture of googlies, offbreaks, top-spinners, flippers and legbreaks. Batsmen have been confounded by the variety of deliveries he has up his sleeve and are at a loss to figure out what his stock delivery is.
Mendis was a prolific wicket-taker for Sri Lanka Army in the 2007-08 season and had taken 46 wickets at an average of 10.56 and strike-rate of 31 from six matches. His performances did not go unnoticed for Mendis was called up to the Sri Lanka squad for the tour of West Indies in April 2008.
After impressing on debut in the Caribbean, Mendis only grew in stature - in particular, because of his 'flicker', which he releases with an unusual snap of his fingers. In a short span Mendis has flummoxed some international batsmen who've played spin pretty well in their careers.
Just ask the Indians, who were clueless against him in the Asia Cup final, where Mendis netted 6 for 13 in his eighth one-day international. His 17 wickets in the tournament duly earned him the Man-of-the-Series award.



watch AJANTA MENDIS against the West Indies....

ICC champions Trophy 2008

ICC Champions Trophy 2008

The 2008 ICC Champions Trophy is a ODI Cricket tournament scheduled to be held in Pakistan from September 11,2008 to September 28,2008. It will be the sixth edition of the ICC Champions Trophy earlier known as the ICC Knock-out.

Group A:

Australia

India

Pakistan

West Indies

Group B:

South Africa

New Zealand

Sri Lanka

England

Schedule

Each side plays the other three sides in each group - the top two sides in each group will progress to the semi-finals. Group A winners will play Group B runners-up, Group B winners will play Group A runners-up.

All matches will be day/night...

11 Pakistan v West Indies, Lahore

12 New Zealand v Sri Lanka, Karachi

13 Australia v India, Lahore

14 England v Sri Lanka, Karachi

15 South Africa v New Zealand, Rawalpindi

16 West Indies v India, Karachi

17 Pakistan v Australia, Rawalpindi

18 South Africa v Sri Lanka, Lahore

19 England v New Zealand, Rawalpindi

20 Pakistan v India, Lahore

21 Australia v West Indies, Karachi

21 England v South Africa, Rawalpindi

24 1st Semi-final, Karachi

25 2nd Semi-final, Rawalpindi

28 Final, Lahore

ICC Champions Trophy- A Brief History..

A Brief History::

The ICC Champions Trophy, also known as the Mini World Cup, is Cricket's One day International tournament second in importance to the Cricket World Cup.
It was inaugurated as the ICC Knock Out tournament in 1998 and has been played every two years since, changing its name to the Champions Trophy in 2002.
Champions Trophy takes place every two years. The matches in the Champions Trophy are held over a period of around two weeks.

1998 ICC Knock Out Tournament

All of the matches in the 1998 ICC Knock Out were played in Dhaka. The tournament started with a preliminary match between New Zealand and Zimbabwe to decide which would proceed to the Quarter Finals. The tournament was won by South Africa, who beat West Indies in the final.

2000 ICC Knock Out tournament

All of the matches in the 2000 tournament were played in Nairobi. There were three qualifying matches before the Quarter Finals, involving Kenya, India, Sri Lanka, West Indies, Bangladesh and England. The tournament was won by New Zealand who beat India in the final.

2002 ICC Champions Trophy

The 2002 ICC Champions Trophy was held in Sri Lanka. The 12 teams included Netherlands and Kenya. Final between India and Sri Lanka washed out twice to leave no result. Consequently, the ICC Champions Trophy for the year 2002 was jointly awarded to India and Sri Lanka.

2004 ICC Champions Trophy

The 2004 ICC Champions Trophy was held in England, September 2004. Fifteen matches were held, spread over sixteen days, at three venues: Edgbaston, Yhe Rose Bowl and The O val. West Indies won the tournament final against England by two wickets to take the trophy.

2006 ICC Champions Trophy

The 2006 ICC Champions Trophy was held in India the final on November 5, 2006.The eight teams were then split into two groups of four in a round robin competition. While Australia and West Indies qualified from Group A, South Africa and New Zealand qualified from Group B for semifinals. Australia and West Indies reached Finals defeating New Zealand and South Africa, respectively. In the finals, Australia beat West Indies by 8 wickets to win the trophy for the first time.

Asia Cup Final today....

The two titans of world cricket, India and Sri Lanka will face each other today in the final of the Asia Cup at the National Stadium in Karachi, the port city of Pakistan. Bangladesh Television will telecast the match live from 3.20 PM (Indian Standard Time) from the stadium.

Earlier, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh moved to the second round from their respective groups.

India and Sri Lanka confirmed their final berth securing six points each while

Pakistan and Bangladesh were ousted from the title race. Pakistan collected four points while Bangladesh failed to earn any point from the second round. The National Stadium is set to prepare to stage the gala final between the two giants of world cricket.

India's key batsmen are: Gautam Gambhir, Virendar Sehwag, Suresh Raina, Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni. Their key bowlers are: RP Singh, Irfan Pathan and Praveen Kumar.

On the other hand, Sri Lanka have world class batsmen like Sanath Jayasuriya, Kumar Sangakkara.
Besides, skipper Mahela Jayawardene is also capable to resist debacle. Sri Lanka's bowling line up is marvellous as they have two weapons like pacer Chaminda Vaas and wizard spinner Muralitharan.