equatorIt is easy to get caught up in the Ashes nonsense, but something else happened recently, a unheralded warrior left test cricket.
Chaminda Vaas.
There has been better players play for their country. Faster bowlers. Bigger wicket takers. But few have had the heart, commitment, work ethic and fire of this little man.
He leaves test cricket as the highest wicket taker of any non spinner his country has ever had, the 2nd highest tally for any left arm bowler in history and he is only the 2nd bowler from his country to take over 100 test wickets. That is some honour.
355 test wickets the little man got.
Not with pace or aggression, but with patience, skill and hard work.
Vaas is the sort of player that deserves more than he gets. He never show boated, didn’t get caught in sex scandals, and wasn’t a walking headline.
He was a test bowler, a very good test bowler, a great of his country, and one with the 17th most wickets in test history.
For 15 years he played test cricket, and he fought for every wicket.
His build is more like that of a jockey than of a faster bowler, but if the bigger guys had what makes him tick they would have been unstoppable.
He was often quoted as saying he knew he didn’t have the talent of the others, but that he worked harder than anyone else. He didn’t need to say it we could all see it.
When he was playing the game had a grace to it, like many of his countrymen he respected the game, but still played to win.
Whether with the bat or ball he was always fighting, and when he was at the wicket you know your team had a fight on its hand.
He was very easy to admire, but unfortunately almost as easy to ignore.
His retirement from test cricket has barely caused a ripple outside of Sri Lanka.
Another player retired from test cricket recently, and you can barely move without tripping over one of the eulogies to him.
That player leaves us with great memories and some regrets that he didn’t give us everything he had. Chaminda leaves us knowing that he got every bit out of himself.
Vaas earned everything he got, and you can’t say that about many people.
I always thought Sri Lanka would end up with a great spinner, and I always thought they would find a fast bowler almost as good.
They didn’t. They got a medium pacer with guts, determination, and spirit. One who put his small shoulder into the crease every time he was out there, one who bowled on some of the flattest pitches in the world with hardly a complaint and one who did it with a quiet dignified grace.
Sri Lanka was lucky to have a man of such character.
We are lucky to have a sport that produces such men.
Thank you, Chaminda.
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What a magnificent tribute, JRod! This is JRod at his sublime best folks.
Awesome tribute, but then any tribute to Vaasy was going to be good, because he has so many likeable traits. I’m just glad you wrote it. Cheers jrod
Nice piece. I did not know that you had this side to you as well.
Chaminda, was a one of those champions who need to be celebrated and looked up as role models. Unfortunately that;s not the case.
Thanks again Jrod for writing this.
Totally agree.
There are a lot better judges than me who would say Warne would not have taken as many wickets had he not been working in tandem with McGrath for the better part of his career. Dare I say Vaas was Murali’s McGrath?
Good call Muppet. However, I think Murali helped Vaas more than vice versa (the former tied up the bating order, and the latter got the benefit when they tried to work him for runs and got out in the process). With Warne and McGrath – I would say they were equally dangerous, so the batting lineup had no where to go!! This is just my opinion.
Very very un-jrod like piece.
But beautiful tribute too.
Thanks UncleJ…
He was the one who showed that you need not be express to get the job done at the top level.
Nice piece Uncle J.
Something that needed to be said. Glad you did.
Nice right up there Jrod. Well said. Now can we get him made up to look like Mitchell
Johnson before Thursday
Vaasy was the type who always did well with whatever was given to him…sometimes, I do wonder how much better he would have been able to perform if he had had a better opening partner at the other end…his batting was equally good, always managing to stodge around and give company to the specialist batsmen.
nothing in the press here J so probably would not have known. Nice one Chaminda !
Testify.
He was a clean hitter too. 355 wickets is a fantastic achievement given that for most of his career Murali has been twirling away at the other end.
Hear! Hear!
17th on the all time list, 25 more than Allan Donald, 30 more than Bob Willis and the same number as DK Lillee.
Only 7 of those above him also scored a Test hundred, though.
He deserved more respect than he has had on his retirement. Top marks for bucking that trend
Great piece, and no, you’d never see anything like it in the newspapers here. He only took 130 more test wickets than Andrew Flintoff, after all…
i never realised he was so small
Lovely piece, I agree with it all in spades. One of those players that always kept me and probably everyone else around cheering on the Sri Lankan team.
@theoldbatsman
And won a few more matches than him, did not go pedaloing and all that and also won just one more World Cup. Does not merit a mention at all.
Fantastic!
His career was in a way a testament to having an economical, repeatable, smooth bowling action, perfect wrist position, and the fact that two deliveries – the inswinger and the straight one angled across – is enough ‘variety’ to have if you know how to use them.
Adding to what KK says, yes as far as I can remember, he’s one of the fast bowlers who had least amount of injuries considering a career spanning such a long time. I don’t really remember the last time he was out of the side due to an injury.
One of those players who I never really noticed, except when he took 3 in the opening over of the World Cup match. Still you can’t argue with his record- and he was clearly a massive part of the emergence and growth of Sri Lanka into of a fantastic one day team (very quickly) and very good test team in pretty short order too