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By
BV Swagath
 One
of the most silent yet efficient performers in world cricket
for the last decade has been one soft spoken Lankan – Chaminda
Vaas. A natural mover of the cricket ball, Chaminda Vaas has
made the small Emerald Island proud by becoming the 6th bowler
in One Day International History to take 300 wickets. An
amazing fact is that all the six bowlers – Wasim Akram, Waqar
Younis, Muttiah Muralitharan, Anil Kumble, Javagal Srinath and
Vaas himself are from the sub continent! Vaas joined this
elite list on April 25th, 2004 by cleaning up the stumps of a
hapless Zimbabwean batsman, Alester Maragwede.
Chaminda Vaas is just 29 years and the records he has created
are just astonishing. He holds the world record for the best
bowling figures in ODIs, a feat which he had achieved at the
Sinhalese Sports Club, three years back and
Zimbabwe as usual were at the receiving end. He
achieved that with a deadly bowling analysis of 8-3-19-8.
Three of those wickets came in consecutive balls and that
meant Zimbabwe were bundled out for a miserable 38. Three
years later, it was a one day international at Harare and Vaas
ended with figures of 9-4-11-4, which included the all
important 300th of his career! The result of that magical
spell from Vaas was an all-time low of 35 for Zimbabwe.
Something unbelievable happened on last year’s Valentines' Day
– and that was Bangladesh losing their first three wickets of
the first three balls of the match. That was the World Cup
clash at Pietermaritzburg we are talking about; Chaminda Vaas
sending back Hannan Sarkar, Md.Ashraful and Ehsanul Haq to the
pavilion with the three batsmen returning without a single
peanut in exchange of their wicket. Records and more records
come naturally for this left armer and one record which cannot
be erased is “the player with the longest name to have ever
played International Cricket.” Very few and true cricket fans
can remember and pronounce this name properly -
Warnakulasuriya Pettabhandige Ushanta Joseph Chaminda Vaas.
Sri Lanka were blessed with this highly
committed player during the India Vs Sri Lanka, one dayer at
Rajkot in 1993/94. Chaminda had an if-not-impressive debut
with bowling figures of 8-0-40-1. Ever since that, Sri Lanka
had one more bowler other than Murali who could be relied upon
and that was Chaminda Vaas. Vaas never had the sheer pace to
tear away the batsmen apart, but what he had was the craft.
The craft of moving the ball both ways with deceptive pace,
the accurate off cutters and an effective bouncer were all
part of this man’s armoury. A relaxed and smooth approach to
the wicket has kept Chaminda Vaas going over the years and he
looks strong enough for more bowling workload in the future.
That’s all about his bowling, but never ever underestimate
Chaminda’s potential with the bat! He is a lusty hitter down
the order for Sri Lanka and has proved that many times in his
career, who will forget his roof hitting sixes at Sharjah! All
in all, Chaminda Vaas is a player, every team would desire to
have and to back this man’s ability are the career economy of
4.14 and a bowling strike rate of 38 in One day
internationals. Salute the man for all his achievements and if
you are a top order batsman, then don’t take him easy!
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