Profiles / Andrew Hughes / 04 February 2009 / Leave a comment

The deadly Sri Lankan M&M spinning partnership is creating terror amongst the world's greatest batsmen. The arrival of Mendis is a huge breath of fresh air to spin bowling and may just give Murali a new lease of life says Andrew Hughes.

Before Warne, spin bowling was in a decline. He rejuvenated the art but he didn't do it alone. He had some help from a beaming, rubber-wristed offie from Sri Lanka.

Together, Warne and Murali have delighted and amazed connoisseurs of spin-bowling for the last decade and a half. But with Warne retired and Murali rapidly approaching his cricketing dotage, it appeared that this particular golden age was over. That was until the arrival of Ajantha Mendis. His devastating debut against the West Indies last spring sent shockwaves around world cricket and his blossoming partnership with Murali looks likely to give the old boy a new lease of life. So just how deadly can the M&M partnership be and why are they so effective together?

Vive la Difference

Common to most of the great spin-bowling partnerships has been variety. Whilst as people, both Murali and Mendis are cut from the same unassuming cloth, as bowlers they are very different. Murali employs the traditional arts, albeit with an unorthodox delivery. He lures and bamboozles with flight, loop and drift and then strikes with prodigious turn, in either direction. His overs are conducted at the leisurely pace of the master-mesmeriser. Mendis, by contrast, is like something out of a Terminator film. He runs rather than jogs to the wicket and unleashes an array of fizzing off-breaks, leg-breaks, flippers, doosras and cutters, not to mention his speciality 'carrom' ball, all delivered at fair lick and with impeccable accuracy. Individually they are dangerous. Together, they are deadly.

To Me To You

Spinners work best in pairs, preying on the psychological defects of batsmen, setting puzzles that complement one another and confuse the opposition. Pity the poor batsman facing Sri Lanka who must now try to find a way to keep out Murali's vicious turners at one end and the impossible to read Mendis at the other. One is forever probing by degrees of spin, offering tempting drifters that turn and spit when they land. The other is whirling to the wicket and offering up a bewildering assortment of deliveries that you can only read at the last minute, pushed on to you at an urgent medium pace, asking searching questions of your technique and intelligence. It's enough to make your head ache.

The Greats

Putting aside the Indian quartet of Bedi, Prasanna, Chandrasekha and Venkataraghavan, who were really six partnerships in one, how do Murali and Mendis compare to the great spin partnerships of the past?

I'd put them ahead of Laker and Lock, who were deadly on damp pitches, but less dangerous when there was no juice in the ground. Ramadhin and Valentine bamboozled England in 1950, but were overbowled and soon worked out. Harbhajan and Kumble had their moments but were not as effective outside the sub continent.

The partnership they come nearest too is perhaps the greatest of all: that of Australian leggies Clarrie Grimmett and Bill O'Reilly. The combination of Grimmett's subtle technique and O'Reilly's medium pace spin delivered with a fast-bowlers mentality was deadly. Unfortunately, their four-year long reign of terror was broken up when at the age of 44, Grimmett was dropped.

The Future

By those standards, Murali has another eight years to play! Though that is unlikely, the presence of an equally gifted spinner at the other end who can take the pressure off him could keep the old boy's enthusiasm going for another year or two, long enough for the pair to bag a huge haul of wickets and strike fear into batsmen the world over.

The M&M effect is likely to be most evident in the Test arena, where they can probe away for over after over, building up pressure. In the limited overs formats, they can only deliver twenty overs between them and as the Indian batsmen have shown recently, if you play them with circumspection, you can make hay against the lesser bowlers. With the series already wrapped up, the Indians are [1.58] favourites to win the fourth match at Colombo on Thursday, with the Sri Lankans [2.42]. As ever though, punters should tread warily when considering bets in dead rubbers.