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I have always believed that when you have wrist spinners – a mystery one or a normal legspinner - it is very vital to read what is coming out of the hand. Once you can read what is coming, it is a lot easier to play. If you know the guy is bowling an offspinner, you can play for it. If you know it is a legspinner, you can play in a slightly different way. If you are not sure, then you have a serious problem. What it means is that you are only playing to protect your wicket. You are never going to get into a position to score.

Gleeson had very big hands and long fingers and he bowled like Mendis – the offspinner came off the index finger and the legspinner came off the middle finger – not the ring finger. But it comes at you a little flatter – his normal offspin and legspin deliveries don’t loop in the air. So it is not easy to pick as the hand comes at you, but you have to find a way to pick it. I remember that for a long time we struggled against Gleeson. We played only to protect our wicket, and we couldn’t get into positions to hit him. Then we worked it out. A lot of times Alan Knott and I used to stay in our rooms with a tennis ball trying to figure out how he did what he did by throwing the ball to each other. It took quite a lot of hours to figure it out. Then when you think you have figured it out, you have to go to the middle and try and play it and then slowly and surely you get confident that you can read him. Then it is a different ballgame.

When he [Mendis] bowls his googly, it shouldn’t be too difficult to read because there is a little bit of wrist involved. Not a lot, but if you see closely then you can see when that comes. The Carrom ball is a bit different because it comes out of the front of the fingers and it doesn’t look very different from the offspinner and the legspinner because it is all fingers and there is no big wrist movement like when Shane Warne bowls, turning his wrist over. If you don’t read that, then you are going to get caught on the back foot to one that runs and skids on quickly and get out. It is really about watching the video tape and working it out over and over again. Only then you can play him with any success. Till then it is only a problem.

I saw Laxman get bowled twice through the gate and then he got stumped as well. Laxman is a quality player, but this is obviously a serious problem. Also I think, with due respect, it is a bigger problem playing Mendis in Sri Lanka than it is when we played Gleeson in Australia. When we first played Gleeson in Australia, the pitches were pretty decent. It did turn a little bit in Sydney, but some of the pitches in Sri Lanka turn an enormous amount. Therefore, the more the turn is, the more the spin and the bigger the problem. When we couldn’t read Gleeson, we played for our stumps: we played a lot for the legspinner because that was the one which we would either nick to the slip or if we missed it, it would bowl us. So we played a lot for the legspinner. But that is not so easy in Sri Lanka. If the ball is turning two feet or more, which it does because it turns enormous distances, it is not so easy. So I do feel for the Indian batsmen, but they have to do their homework by watching videos and trying to work him out as much as they can. Until you read him, you have a serious problem. As I mentioned earlier, the top Indian batsmen struggled against him and Muttiah Muralitharan.