Die Macht » He turned the Test in a new directio

College football has the uncanny ability to surprise us every weekend and yet at the same time provide a little sense of déjà vu.For those who have been paying close attention to the College Football Playoff the past two years, some parallels can be drawn early. Take a look at how some previous playoff storylines have the potential to resurface under the guise of different programs:2016 Clemson is 2014 FSU: Close wins? A few scares? Dont say it ... not game control ...Then: The undefeated 2014 Seminoles never reached the No. 1 spot in the committees top four in large part because they won in unconvincing fashion. Everybody says game control, FSU coach Jimbo Fisher said after beating Boston College 20-17. Thats something made up. As a coach, you talk about one thing: Finish. Get it done. This team wins in every way, shape and form you can win. It was good enough for No. 3.Now: Clemson has beaten its past two unranked opponents -- Auburn and Troy -- by six points each. The Tigers dropped three spots to No. 5 in this weeks AP poll. So far, the ACCs other Atlantic Division heavyweight is following the Noles 2014 blueprint: finding a way to win the close ones, albeit in unimpressive fashion. I dont know about other people, Clemson coach Dabo Swinney said last week, but I think that with our schedule, if we win every game by one point and were 13-0, I think well be just fine. Fine, yes. No. 1? Probably not.2016 San Diego State is 2014 Marshall: Undefeated? Yep. But who did you play?Then: Marshall was 10-0, ranked No. 18 in the AP poll, and still unranked by the selection committee because of its weak strength of schedule. It wasnt until Week 14 that the undefeated Herd snuck into the committees top 25 at No. 24 -- right behind a two-loss Boise State team.Now: The Aztecs are 2-0 and coming off an impressive win over Cal, but theres not one ranked opponent currently on their schedule. ESPNs Football Power Index ranks San Diego States strength of schedule No. 118. Marshall entered bowl season ranked No. 127 of 128. The highest-ranked champion from a Group of 5 conference is guaranteed a spot in a New Years Six bowl, so the Aztecs are a team to keep an eye on in that regard, but they could face a similar snub from the committee -- even if undefeated.2016 Oklahoma is 2014 Ohio State or 2015 Stanford: Theyre done. Toast. Kaput.Then: The Buckeyes at home to an unimpressive Virginia Tech team in Week 2 and were instantly discredited in the CFP race. Instead, they ran the table with their third-string quarterback, won the Big Ten title and earned a spot in the committees final top four of the season. Stanford was also written off last year after its season-opening loss to Northwestern, but was still in the conversation even as a two-loss Pac-12 champ.Now: Oklahoma is trying to rebound from its season-opening loss to Houston (granted, not nearly as bad of a loss as the one the Buckeyes suffered to the Hokies), but OU and the entire Big 12 have practically been discounted. (Psst, its just one loss). The Sooners now likely have to run the table -- a tall task with Ohio State looming this Saturday -- but the Buckeyes will remind you, it can be done.2016 Bama is potential 2015 and 2014 Bama: Rewind, repeat ... rewind, repeat ...Then: In 2014, Alabama finished No. 1 in the selection committees ranking, in spite of losing to Ole Miss. In 2015, Alabama finished No. 2 in the committees final ranking, in spite of losing to Ole Miss.Now: Here comes Ole Miss. Nick Saban certainly doesnt want to lose three straight to the Rebels, but as far as the playoff goes, it clearly doesnt matter if he does.2016 Pitt is potential 2015 Iowa: Just how good are they?Then: The Hawkeyes cruised through the weaker Big Ten West division, and ran the table during the regular season, making it impossible for the selection committee to leave an undefeated Power 5 team out of its top four. Iowa had faced just two ranked teams during the regular season -- Wisconsin and Northwestern -- and it was hard to tell just how good they were until the title game (a 16-13 loss to Michigan State) and Rose Bowl Game presented by Northwestern Mutual (a 45-16 Stanford rout).Now: Like Iowa, Pitt hails from the weaker of its divisions, and it currently has only two ranked opponents on its schedule (No. 25 Miami and No. 5 Clemson). If Pitt can survive upcoming back-to-back road games against Oklahoma State and North Carolina, it could be 8-0 heading into the Miami game. 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Nathan MacKinnon, Jamie McGinn and Jan Hejda also scored for the Avalanche, who won despite being outshot 38-23. MacKinnons goal, also on the power play, came with just over a minute remaining. Kusal Mendis first run after lunch takes him to 87. It is 13 short of a hundred. It is the number men in the opposition will say is unluckiest for a batsman. But Mendis doesnt know that. Or at least, he doesnt play like he does.Soon, he squirts a single to square leg. Soon after, he puts a Josh Hazlewood ball through midwicket with that homespun punch-pull. When he sweeps Nathan Lyon for six in the following over, he has moved clean through the nineties in eight balls. He owns 72% of the teams runs. He is living out the fantasy of anyone to have held a bat. If at the time Mendis knows that, he doesnt celebrate like he does.The defence has been immaculate since his amble to the crease. To the spinners, he pushes feet forward, sticks bat close to body, watches and waits. Here is a player who drags his feet at the non-strikers end. Who lets his blade trail along the ground when strolling to his partner, mid-pitch. In so much of his demeanour, he is the teams kid brother - he is the youngest man on the field. But if a ball is to be blocked, Mendis is the Michelin-starred joint just as doors open for dinner service. He is the Special Forces unit, awaiting orders to move in.Hes one of our guys who really has a technique, coach Graham Ford had said of him last month. How rare that is in a nation where pure technique is a breakthrough, rather than a birthright. There were at least seven years in international cricket before Kumar Sangakkara worked out a set-up that satisfied him. Aravinda de Silva needed a summer with Kent to unlock his gifts. Yet, seven Tests in, and 21 years old, Mendis sees through the dip and away-spin from Steve OKeefe in the morning. He milks the turn into his body from Lyon. He pushes away and picks off Hazlewoods full length. Then in the afternoon, when the ball begins to reverse-swing, the drives come fresh and flowing, like a scent on the breeze. Hazlewood is drilled past his right foot. The straight drive off Mitchell Starc is more delicate, but as delectable - teasing fielders who nearly collide, and give chase all the way in vain.Only in the stroke to get to a hundred, and in one other shot in the day, was there violence. Starc had venom for him all morning, of the verbal variety as much as with ball in hand. But when the bowler went wide, Meendis upper-cut him behind point.dddddddddddd Next ball, the overcorrection skidded past fine leg.Late in the day, there is that lofted on-drive flick too - the one that had the crowd sitting up and taking notice on a bleak afternoon in Leeds. Yet it was not Headingley, but Hyderabad that made a man of Mendis. Having led an unsuccessful Under-19 World Cup campaign in 2014, Mendis breezed to 156 in the little-loved Moin-ud-Dowlah three-day tournament last year, then suddenly found himself in the Test XI against West Indies, just one first-class hundred and a fifty to his name.If he has layered improbability upon improbability in producing this innings - defusing the spinners where others have lunged and groped, scoring quickly off the fast men who have had team-mates prodding and jerking, it is because he has stacked improbabilities all his life. The son of a Moratuwa three-wheeler driver, Mendis became Sri Lankan cricket royalty when he was named 2014s Schoolboy Cricketer of the Year. Two years later, today, he put a three-hour frown on the captain of the worlds top Test team. He threaded balls through the gaps of a five-man leg-side infield. He turned the Test in a new direction, and along the way, the oppositions mouthy spearhead into a mute.Angelo told us that they come at you very hard in the first few spells and the main thing is to get them bowling into their third and fourth spells, Mendis said after play. So we stuck at the wicket in the best way we could. During the last couple of hours, they came with a plan to have more fielders on the leg side. We also knew that, and played the situation well.By the time he went to stumps on 169*, the team 196 runs ahead, Sri Lanka fans had begun to hope Mendis is the man they have been waiting for. Following perhaps the bleakest seven months for this team since the turn of the century, there is a reason to fry up the fish cutlets in celebration, to break out the arrack for joy (Mendis brand, why would you even ask?).As composed after the day, as he was against OKeefe, or Lyon or Starc, Mendis didnt know he was playing one of Sri Lankas great innings. Or at least it didnt seem like he does. ' ' '