What happened to Kusal Mendis? Man who looked promising and disappeared

• Kusal Mendis a batsman who starts off his career on a positive note. Kusal mendis played for his college (Prince of wales) during his schooling years and he was awarded as the Schoolboy Cricketer of the year in 2013. In the following season Kusal was selected as the captain of 2014 under-19 World Cup.

• He played his Test debut at home against West Indies. When Australia toured Sri Lanka in 2016 this young boy shocked the Aussies. He scored 176 in the second innings of the first Test and was awarded as the player of the match. He scored 296 runs in the 3 match test series and helped to whitewash Aussies 3-0. 

• Soon after, he was awarded the ODI cap. Mendis scored his maiden ODI ton against Bangladesh. With some experience. he was part of the squad for the Champions Trophy 2017. At the Oval, India scored a mammoth 322 in their 50 overs. However Sri Lanka was guided for the victory by Kusal Mendis and Danushka Gunathilake. Mendis scored a match winning 89 and Sri Lanka was able to chase down the score. This is also the highest ever successful chase in Champions Trophy. 

• Mendis continued playing for Sri Lanka by cementing his No 3 position across all three formats. 2020/21 South Africa and England tour that's when all failures started. Mendis scored 4 consecutive ducks against South Africa and England

• SLC released Kusal Mendis from the Test series  Bangladesh . Failures after failures continued. SLC cricket released experience players like Angelo Mathews, Dinesh Chandimal, Dimuth Karunaratne for the white-ball series against Bangladesh in Bangladesh. They started hunting for some new talent. Kusal Janith Perera was appointed as the captain and Kusal Mendis was appointed as the Vice-captain. Sri Lanka lost the ODI series against Bangladesh as 2-1. Sri Lanka toured England after 5 years for 3 T20I's and ODI's. England won the T20I series comfortably. And yet again Kusal Mendis failed. With Bio-Bubble protocols due to COVID-19 Sri Lanka was staying in Durham to kickstart the ODI series. Kusal Mendis alongside with two other seniors was suspended with immediate effect after they breached the bio-bubble protocols. 

• SLC is likely to take strict action on the players. “It could be anywhere between 3 months to 1 year,” the official said. From one POV this was a much needed break for Kusal Mendis, A man who who looks promising for Sri Lanka Cricket. Might be a return of a classy player. As they say "Form is temporary, Class is permanent".