Superman Kamindu takes flight to save the day for SRH

These days, people are taking to the sky more and more. Some believe there is a home up there. Maybe even life. Others have found ways to turn it into a tourist attraction. All of them are huge leaps of science. A triumph of the modern age. They could do worse than look at Kamindu Mendis and see how to celebrate. He couldn't stop talking about his little trip off the earth.

"Yeah, there's been a lot of Sinhalese in our dressing room in the last little while," Sunrisers Hyderabad coach Daniel Vettori said chuckling to himself at the press conference, "Which obviously I don't understand. There's a lot of Tamil which I don't understand as well."

Dewald Brevis had hit the ball like it had tried to make off with his pocket money. He's got such fast hands. That's where the comparisons with AB de Villiers come from. Bat speed generating ungodly power. He'd gone from 17 off 17 to 42 off 24 and was looking to go 48 off 25.

Kamindu was at long-off. Actually no. For some reason, he chose a starting position well off the boundary line. When the ball was struck to him, everybody turned around. Pat Cummins had his mouth open as his eyes traced the path of what looked like a flat, hard six. Nobody expected what happened next to happen next.

Kamindu moved to his left a total of 11.09m. That still wasn't enough. He put in a full-length dive, both hands reaching out, and above him, reverse cupped. A second later, he hit the floor, with the most important thing in the world. It was clinging to him. He didn't even feel the need to wrap his fingers around it anymore. He was actually whirling his hand round and round, daring it to fall off. But it didn't. It was completely under his spell. First it was the red ball. Now it's the white one too.

"Which is his weak side, we never know," boomed Ian Bishop on commentary, a beautifully executed double-entendre to refer to the fact that Kamindu is ambidextrous. He bowls with both hands. That is how he broke into international cricket. He was a curiosity. Then he scored runs so fast and so easily he was keeping pace with some guy called Don from 75 years ago and it became clear that he had more value than that.

Brevis saw it and couldn't believe it. Harshal Patel came down with a bad case of Oh My Broad face. Cummins took it upon himself to run to Kamindu and put him where he belonged. Where he seemed so at ease. Off his feet and in the air. IPL 2025 has been lousy with dropped catches. Maybe it needed to be for something like this to happen and balance the scales.

Vettori needed a moment to find words that could make sense of it. "I think it's just instinct," he said. "It's an innate ability to be able to move. To see the ball and time your diving. So probably one of those catches that even a brilliant fielder only has one or two in their career."

Chennai Super Kings (CSK) were 114 for 4 in the 13th over. Brevis had hit three sixes in the previous one. Kamindu was the bowler he took to the cleaners. They were looking at a total of 180, not 150, which would've been tricky. This was a pitch that forced 12 out of 17 batters to score at a strike rate below 125. CSK coach Stephen Fleming was filled with the feeling of what could have been. He was even reminded of a similar situation early in the season where Shivam Dube was beginning to tip the scales in a chase of 183 against Rajasthan Royals.

"And again, we were probably victims of a match-winning catch," Fleming said. "It was going well, it was an outstanding catch. We had Riyan Parag in a game at Guwahati, who took a great catch as well. So a couple of key moments there that they earned, did well." The thing that was unsaid here is that while CSK have been at the receiving end of these bangers, they've been putting down clangers.

This game was so edgy and tense. "Yorker" came the cry as Matheesha Pathirana ran in to bowl. The knowledgeable Chennai crowd knew what to expect from one of its favourites. Except in trying to hit the blockhole, the bowler lost control and was lucky to land it on the cut strip.

Aniket Verma was promoted up the order to throw the bowlers, particularly the spinners off their lengths. He'd done just about enough of that, hitting Sam Curran and Ravindra Jadeja for sixes and helping his team take 25 runs off two overs immediately after a wicket-taking over that went for just one run. The equation now read 49 off 37, which if not quite a cake walk is at least in a muffin stroll territory.

Aniket slogged across the line, got out and left the field fuming. By the time he left the 30-yard circle, he had yelled at himself twice. He might also have used this time to stress test his pads, whacking his bat into them with full force.

"By the end, it was sort of like, it was two teams that were nervous about winning, going hammer and tongs on a tough wicket." With the clock nearing midnight and the match long done, Fleming had a wry smile as he said that. This was a weird T20. Things kept happening - which is the format's forte - but most wouldn't merit a place on the highlight reel. The bloopers, maybe. Still, this low-scoring scrap of a game did not come without a prize. It was a chance to get rid of the wooden spoon and Kamindu took it with both of his remarkable hands.