Kamindu Mendis is a 28-year-old Sri Lankan left-hand batting all-rounder who bowls with both arms, and he joins Nangarhar Cosmic for APL T20 2026 as their first Gold pick from the player draft in Dubai on 3 November 2026, for a reported US$40,000.
Kamindu Mendis did not play in the first APL season. He was not in any of the five
squads for the inaugural edition in Sharjah in October 2018 — the Sri Lankan in
that tournament was Thisara Perera, who played for Paktia Panthers. His own
international debut came six days after the APL final, a T20I against England at
Colombo on 27 October 2018. So the 2026 season is his APL debut, eight years after
the league began, and he arrives as a 28-year-old with one of the most remarkable
young Test records in world cricket.
Nangarhar Cosmic took him as their first pick of the Gold round at the player
draft in Dubai on 3 November 2026, for a reported US$40,000, to a side captained
by Rahmat Shah, coached by Toby Radford and mentored by Mark Boucher. The season
starts on 27 December 2026 in the UAE, with the fixture list still to be
confirmed.
For a side built around Rahmat Shah's steadiness and Alex Hales' power at the top,
Mendis is the middle-order glue: a left-hander who has rescued Sri Lanka from
trouble in Test after Test, who can bat anywhere from opener to No. 7, and who
gives his captain two kinds of spin from a single player. He has played the
franchise leagues of Sri Lanka, India, Bangladesh and the UAE, and he walked into
a home T20 World Cup in February 2026. At 28, with a Test average above 50 and a
maiden ODI hundred fresh in the book, he is the kind of signing a new franchise
builds a batting order around.
APL career stats
Mendis has no APL past — he was not in any squad for the first season in 2018,
and the 2026 season is his debut in the league. The tables below will fill in
once the first ball is bowled on 27 December 2026.
102 and 164 vs Bangladesh — twin hundreds at Sylhet
1st Test · Sylhet International Cricket Stadium · 22–25 March 2024
In the first innings Mendis made 102 and shared a 202-run sixth-wicket stand
with captain Dhananjaya de Silva, who also made 102 — only the third time two
players from the same team had made twin hundreds in a Test. In the second
innings he made 164, with 16 fours and six sixes, and Sri Lanka won by 328
runs. He was named player of the series for 367 runs and three wickets.
Why it mattered: the first batter ever to score two hundreds
in a Test while batting at No. 7 or lower; his 266 runs in the match are
second only to Don Bradman's 270 in that position.
182 not out vs New Zealand — a career best at Galle
2nd Test · Galle International Stadium · 26 September 2024
Mendis's unbeaten 182 in the first innings was his fifth Test hundred and his
career best, and it took him to 1,000 Test runs in just 13 innings — equalling
Don Bradman's mark and making him the fastest Asian, and the fastest batter
of the 21st century, to the milestone. He had passed fifty in nine of those
13 innings and a hundred in five of them. Sri Lanka won by an innings and
154 runs, and Mendis was player of the match.
Why it mattered: joint-third fastest to 1,000 Test runs in
history, and the first batter to pass fifty in each of his first eight Test
matches.
113 vs England — a hundred at Old Trafford
1st Test · Old Trafford, Manchester · 21 August 2024
Mendis's third Test hundred came in difficult conditions against England's
seamers at Old Trafford, in a 117-run stand with Dinesh Chandimal. After the
innings his Test average stood at 92.16 — the second-highest in Test history
among players with more than 500 runs. Sri Lanka lost the match by five
wickets, but Mendis went on to be named joint player of the series with Joe
Root, scoring 267 runs as Sri Lanka's leading run-scorer in the series.
Why it mattered: his hundred announced him outside Asia, and
Sri Lanka won the final Test at The Oval — their first Test win in England
in a decade.
131 vs Pakistan — a maiden ODI hundred in a final
ODI tri-series final · Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore · 31 October 2026
Opening the batting in the tri-series final, Mendis reached his maiden ODI
hundred off 107 balls and finished with 131 off 128, with 12 fours and two
sixes, improving on his previous ODI best of 64. He shared an 87-run opening
stand with Avishka Fernando and a 146-run third-wicket stand with Pavan
Rathnayake, who made 77, as Sri Lanka posted 325 for 8. Pakistan chased it
down with nine balls to spare, Fakhar Zaman making 127, but the innings was
Mendis's first hundred in white-ball internationals.
Why it mattered: his first ODI hundred, in a final, eight
years after his international debut — and it came at the top of the order,
not his usual middle-order spot.
The ambidextrous over — IPL history on debut
IPL · Eden Gardens, Kolkata · 3 April 2025
On his IPL debut for Sunrisers Hyderabad against Kolkata Knight Riders,
Mendis was brought on in the 13th over and bowled left-arm spin to
right-hander Angkrish Raghuvanshi and right-arm off-spin to left-handers
Venkatesh Iyer and Rinku Singh — the first time any bowler had switched arms
in an over in IPL history. He dismissed Raghuvanshi for 50 off 32 with his
fourth ball, caught by Harshal Patel, and finished with 1 for 4 in his only
over. He also made 27 off 20 with the bat, and later won the IPL's Catch of
the Season award for a diving boundary catch to dismiss Dewald Brevis
against Chennai Super Kings.
Why it mattered: a piece of IPL history on debut — and the
catch award showed the other half of his game.
Playing style and strengths
Mendis is a left-hand middle-order batter who builds an innings rather than
blasting it. He is at his best against spin, working the ball into gaps with
soft hands and using the sweep to move the field, but he can also clear the
ropes when the situation asks for it — his 164 at Sylhet had six sixes. What
sets him apart is conversion: he passed fifty in nine of his first 13 Test
innings and turned five of them into hundreds, and the ICC called him Sri
Lanka's go-to player in a crisis during the 2024 season. In the 2024 England
series he scored at a strike rate of 63, quick for a middle-order Test batter,
and he has opened in one-day cricket too, as the Lahore hundred showed.
The bowling is what makes him rare. He bowls left-arm orthodox to right-handers
and right-arm off-break to left-handers, which lets a captain match the spinner
to the batter without changing the bowler — the trick he showed the IPL on his
debut. In Tests it is a part-time option so far, three wickets in 18 matches
with a best of 3 for 32, but in white-ball cricket it can be a genuine weapon:
3 for 21 on his ILT20 debut for MI Emirates. He is athletic in the field, with
16 catches in 18 Tests and an IPL Catch of the Season award to his name, and
that all-round package is why he is in Sri Lanka's side in all three formats.
Records and milestones
T20I debut on 27 October 2018 vs England at Colombo (24 runs); ODI debut on 10 March 2019 vs South Africa; Test debut on 8 July 2022 vs Australia at Galle — a maiden Test fifty of 61 and a 133-run stand with Dinesh Chandimal in an innings-and-39-run win, Sri Lanka's first innings victory over Australia.
Captained Sri Lanka at the 2018 Under-19 World Cup, two years after his ambidextrous bowling first caught the world's attention at the 2016 edition; silver medal with Sri Lanka at the 2019 South Asian Games.
102 and 164 vs Bangladesh at Sylhet in March 2024 — the first batter to score two hundreds in a Test while batting at No. 7 or lower; his 266 runs in the match are second only to Don Bradman's 270 in that position.
419 runs in his first four Test innings — equalling the world record held by Javed Miandad.
First batter to score fifty or more in each of his first eight Test matches.
1,000 Test runs in 13 innings — joint-third fastest in history, equalling Don Bradman, and the fastest by an Asian and by any batter of the 21st century.
2024: 1,049 Test runs in nine Tests at 74.92 with five hundreds; 1,451 runs across formats; ICC Men's Emerging Cricketer of the Year, ICC Men's Test Team of the Year, ICC Player of the Month in March and September, and Sri Lanka Cricket's Cricketer of the Year.
182 not out vs New Zealand at Galle on 26 September 2024 — his highest Test score.
First player to switch his bowling arm during an over in the IPL, on debut for Sunrisers Hyderabad against Kolkata Knight Riders at Eden Gardens on 3 April 2025; won the IPL Catch of the Season award in 2025.
131 vs Pakistan at Lahore on 31 October 2026 — his maiden ODI hundred, in the tri-series final, off 107 balls.
Captained Colombo Kaps in the 2026 Lanka Premier League after Kusal Mendis was injured, and finished as the Kaps' highest run-getter with 280 runs.
Gold pick for Nangarhar Cosmic in 2026 — the Cosmic's first Gold selection, for a reported US$40,000; the 2026 season is his APL debut, having not played in the first season in 2018.
Career outside APL
Pasqual Handi Kamindu Dilanka Mendis was born in Galle on 30 September 1998, and
grew up at Richmond College, where he started bowling with both arms at the age
of 13 — left-arm spin to right-handers, right-arm off-spin to left-handers. He
made his List A debut alongside Charith Asalanka on 30 November 2015, was picked
for the 2016 Under-19 World Cup, and was named Sri Lanka's Under-19 captain in
December 2016, leading the side at the 2018 Under-19 World Cup. His Twenty20
debut came for Colombo on 21 August 2018 and his first-class debut for Tamil
Union on 30 November 2018. In December 2019 he was the leading wicket-taker in
the Invitation Limited Over Tournament, with 19 wickets in eight matches, and
later that month he won a South Asian Games silver medal with Sri Lanka in
Kathmandu.
His international career began with a T20I debut against England at Colombo on
27 October 2018 — he made 24 — followed by an ODI debut against South Africa in
March 2019. The Test call took longer: he was named in the Test squad for
Bangladesh in May 2022 and debuted against Australia at Galle that July, making
61 in Sri Lanka's first innings win over Australia. He was in Sri Lanka's
squads for the T20 World Cups of 2021 and 2024, and was recalled for the 2026
edition on home soil in February 2026, replacing Dhananjaya de Silva. The year
2024 changed everything: twin hundreds against Bangladesh at Sylhet in March, a
hundred at Old Trafford in August, two more against New Zealand at Galle in
September — 1,049 Test runs in the calendar year at 74.92 — and the ICC's
Emerging Cricketer of the Year award. In June 2026 he was named in all three
Sri Lanka squads for the tour of West Indies.
The franchise leagues came later than for most players of his talent, because his
first reputation was as a long-format specialist. In the Lanka Premier League he
played for Kandy Tuskers in 2020, Kandy Warriors in 2021 and Kandy Falcons from
2022, before joining Colombo Kaps in 2026 as their Local Star Player and
captaining the side after Kusal Mendis was injured, finishing as the Kaps'
leading run-scorer with 280 runs. He played for Sylhet Strikers in the 2023
Bangladesh Premier League, and in the IPL he was bought by Sunrisers Hyderabad
for INR 75 lakh in the 2025 mega auction, making his debut against Kolkata
Knight Riders in April 2025 — the ambidextrous over, the Catch of the Season —
and was retained for 2026 at the same price. MI Emirates signed him before the
2025–26 ILT20 season, and he marked his debut with a player-of-the-match award
against Abu Dhabi Knight Riders, taking 3 for 21. He has not played in the BBL,
the PSL, the CPL, SA20, The Hundred or the NPL.
The career figures recorded in August 2026 stand at 18 Tests with 1,556 runs at
53.65 and five hundreds, 46 T20Is with 766 runs at 20.70, and a first-class
record of 5,476 runs in 65 matches at 58.25 with 19 hundreds and a highest
score of 200 not out. His ODI figures — 29 matches and 539 runs at 25.66 — date
from the same point, before his maiden hundred, 131 against Pakistan at Lahore
on 31 October 2026. He arrives at the APL as a 28-year-old who has already
rewritten parts of the Test record book, who can bat in the top order or the
middle, and who gives his captain two kinds of spin from a single player — the
sort of cricketer a new franchise builds a batting order around.
Which team does Kamindu Mendis play for in APL 2026?
Kamindu Mendis plays for Nangarhar Cosmic in APL T20 2026. He was the Cosmic's first pick of the Gold round at the player draft in Dubai on 3 November 2026, for a reported US$40,000. Nangarhar are captained by Rahmat Shah, coached by Toby Radford and mentored by Mark Boucher, and the season starts on 27 December 2026 in the UAE.
Did Kamindu Mendis play in the first APL season in 2018?
No. Kamindu Mendis was not in any of the five squads for the first APL season in Sharjah in October 2018 — Paktia Panthers' Sri Lankan that season was Thisara Perera. His T20I debut came six days after the APL final, on 27 October 2018 against England. The 2026 season is his APL debut, eight years after the league's first edition.
What makes Kamindu Mendis's bowling unusual?
Kamindu Mendis bowls with both arms: slow left-arm orthodox to right-handers and right-arm off-break to left-handers. He started bowling with both arms at 13, while playing for Richmond College in Galle. On his IPL debut in April 2025 he became the first player to switch his bowling arm during an over in the competition's history.
What is Kamindu Mendis's best year in Test cricket?
His 2024. Kamindu Mendis scored 1,049 Test runs in nine Tests at 74.92, with five hundreds and three fifties, and 1,451 runs across formats. He reached 1,000 Test runs in 13 innings — equalling Don Bradman — and passed fifty in each of his first eight Test matches, a first. He was named the ICC Men's Emerging Cricketer of the Year for 2024.
What are Kamindu Mendis's international numbers?
In 18 Tests he has scored 1,556 runs at 53.65 with five hundreds, the highest an unbeaten 182 against New Zealand at Galle in 2024. In 46 T20Is he has 766 runs, and his maiden ODI hundred — 131 against Pakistan at Lahore on 31 October 2026 — came in the tri-series final, eight years after his international debut.
