Appreciation

For a generation of cricket lovers in this island, his name was synonymous with the art and craft of fast bowling. He later emerged a role-model and sporting hero of a nation, representing the country since the days Sri Lankan cricket earned the reckoning in the world stage — roughly from the mid 1990s.

This averagely built, Mattumagala-born catholic later became part of an epoch-making Lankan contingent, alongside Ranatunga, de Silva, Jayasuriya and Muralitharan.  

The first man to so boldly inform an uncompromising outside world, in recent times, that these islanders too can produce decent fast bowlers, Warnakulasuriya Patabendige Ushantha Joseph Chaminda Vaas, has all the rights to earn the reputation of being a cricketing legend of our times. Vaas’s name was always uttered with a sense of class right throughout his scintillating career, until his problematic retirement from Tests that came last July.

His gracious run-up and classical left-arm bowling action, his teasing in-dippers —which flabbergasted batting stalwarts of the likes of Utappas, Dravids, Yuvrajs and Strauss, Kirstens and Gilchrists — his trademark kiss of the cross and earnest approach to play, his untiring fighting spirit with either bat or the ball in his hands, Chaminda Vaas was one great inspiration to his young followers who ate, drank and slept cricket since that defining moment of the 1996 World Cup win, of which Vaas was himself a main contributor.

An unassuming and silent servant of the game, even after all his hard-earned achievements — over 350 Test and 400 ODI wickets, an impressive tally of 26 wickets in a 3-Test series against Brian Lara’s Windies in dusty local pitches that were made to suit Murali’s spin, his eight-for in an ODI and the much-hyped ‘first-3-ball hat-trick’ against Bangladesh in the 2003 World Cup —both fantastic world records — never made Vaas a toffee-nosed chap.

His most charming comments in post-match interviews and his affable knack to utter the lines from old Sinhala songs, especially of someone like Milton Mallawarachchi, made Vaas so close to the hearts of millions to dry up, quite strikingly, many religious and ethnic bounds. Vaas showed his class, while not boasting any outlooks of that upper social class, to remain the same old Vaas, since the day he first capped that blue baggy in February, 1994. Thus the name Chaminda Vaas will justifiably last for long, long years in the psyche of the common man.

Criticism

There were many before Vaas who excelled for the country with the new ball. At what point does Chaminda Vaas, who literally helped crisscross two eras of Lankan cricket – from underrated minnows to uncompromising world beaters — stand among the best fast bowlers Sri Lanka has produced?

 D. S. Jayasundara, ‘Sonny’ Yatawara, T. B. Kehelgamuwa, H. S. M. Peiris, L. R. Gunathilake, Darrel Levers, Tony Opatha, Ashantha de Mel, Ravi Rathnayake and Rumesh Rathnayake; the fine efforts of all these former fast bowlers – of the pre and post Test era of the island — will probably be eclipsed by Vaas’ barging in during these days of modern (or, in fact, post-modern) cricket that is often decorated by pompous commercial endorsements, glistening adverts, ‘cinematic’ TV cricket coverage and well looked-after pro lives of a cricketer who has reached celebrity status from recent times.

Neither ‘Kehel’ nor de Mel could persevere such a prosperous career, like what Vaas could do, as the formers’ was a game of pure passion, not profession.

Tony Opatha had to chop wood for improving his physical fitness but Vaas’ era belongs to all sorts of masseurs, physios, trainers and conditioners. Yatawaras would have come by bus to play ‘unofficial’ Tests in those by-gone eras whereas Vaas could get away with money worth a car by appearing in a mosquito coils ad (he actually did so).

Is it justifiable to draw parallels between players of different eras and hail only one as ‘the greatest’ of all time, by depending merely on the records set in black and white? A man’s commitment could be measured, it could be said, according to the context he had to work within.