Against KKR, Kamindu Mendis bowled both left-arm and right-arm spin.
Kamindu Mendis, a spin all-rounder from Sri Lanka, became the first player to switch bowling arms during an IPL over. At Eden Gardens, he accomplished this in his first game for Sunrisers Hyderabad against the Kolkata Knight Riders.
Mendis, who was brought on for the thirteenth over of the innings, bowled three offspin and three left-arm spin deliveries. He gave the batters no leeway by landing each delivery on a good length or a little fuller. He took out right-hander Angkrish Raghuvanshi for 50 off 32 off the fourth ball of the over thanks to a superb catch by Harshal Patel, who was rushing in from deep third.
Mendis was famous for his ambidextrous bowling in the 2016 Under-19 World Cup, long before he had a Bradman-like start as a Test batsman. In a Twenty20 International last year, he bowled with both arms in the same over against Rishabh Pant and Suryakumar Yadav at the senior international level.
Since Raghuvanshi’s dismissal brought together two left-hand batsmen in Venkatesh Iyer and Rinku Singh, Mendis may have bowled just one over against KKR because his left-arm spin is slightly superior to his offspin.
Although switching arms during an over is permitted, a picky umpire may make things a little more challenging for the bowler by requiring that they notify the umpire each time. On Thursday, Mendis didn’t seem to have to tell the umpire every time. He was constantly bowling left-arm to the right-hand hitter and vice versa, suggesting that a pragmatic approach had been taken.
Ironically, Mendis bowled with both hands against a team that had previously actively sought out ambidextrous bowlers. Out of 45 probables in 2009, two of them—a spinner and a quick bowler—were selected by KKR’s creative coach John Buchanan.
You can rely on a Sri Lankan to mess up cricket data logging. Hashan Tillakaratne, who bowled ambidexterously against Kenya at the 1996 World Cup, was the last person to do it on an international level. Prior to Tillakaratne, West Indies’ Gary Sobers achieved his record 365th run, the highest score in a Test innings, in Jamaica as Pakistan’s Hanif Mohammad, a part-time offspinner, bowled left-arm spin.