It’s nice to see a blog entry dedicated to the art of spin bowling. You mentioned a few points in passing but a bit more depth could have helped you readers.

1) You mention ‘principles of spin bowling’ but never got around to explaining what that constitutes. I would have stressed on the basics of Line, length, consistency and control, variations as constituting the core. I leave out qualities like temperament, attitude etc as they are fairly subjective and hard to quantify.

2) You mention a few modern day spinners but surprisingly leave out Anil Kumble. Surely a spinner with a most unusual action and probably the third most successful test spinner in history is worth consideration. I have also had the pleasure of watching Bishen Singh Bedi at his prime and i would rate his control over flight and subtle variations as the best of the lot. ( Even taking into account warne, murali and kumble ) He really did turn spin bowling into an art.

3) I would reckon that mendis, though an exciting propsect, is still fairly new - and only time would tell how he is able to adapt to different batsmen and different surfaces.
Though i would hope that he does sri lankan cricket proud when murali leaves the scene, it’s still early days, in my view.

Please take my comments, not as criticism, but as a different view from one, probably older, cricket fan to another.