Chaminda Vaas – The Most Underrated Left-Arm Fast Bowler

Chaminda Vaas – With over 750 plus wickets in his international cricket career at an average of below 30 across the all formats. If still the bowler is recognised as underrated then it could have been the reason behind that. Unlucky he had played for Sri Lanka not for nations like Australia or South Africa, otherwise Vaas could've been the most destructive left-arm fast bowler not in the modern day cricket but in the history of cricket too. Although, Vaas's success was highly overshadowed by his own teammate Muthaih Muralitharan who both have played in the same era. But no one will deny Vaas in-dipper to right-handers was the best thing about this left-arm fast bowler.

Vaas's ability to swing the ball both ways even on the fattest pitches makes him a complete unplayable bowler of his era. While with the format like T20l where batsmen have complete edge over bowlers in almost every aspect of situations. This left-arm fast bowler came with his off-cutter and probably the best skill Vaas had in the T20l cricket was to reverse swing the ball to completely bamboozle the batsman. Chaminda Vaas was the part of the golden era of Sri Lanka cricket team who with the likes of Muthaih Muralitharan, Kumar Sangakkara, Sanath Jayasuriya and Mahela Jayawardene were probably the best team in Sri Lanka Cricket History too.

Vaas was technically a sound bowler which helped him to form the space for himself among the contemporaries of his era like Wasim Akram, Brett Lee, Shane Bond and Glenn McGrath Which sets him among others. After four years first-class cricket, Vaas made his test debut against Pakistan in 1994 at Kandy. In just the span of one year, Vaas was the frontline fast bowler of Sri Lanka. But Chaminda Vaas career began with Sri Lanka first overseas win against New Zealand at Napier in 1994-95 (where he picked 5-wickets in each innings and contributed with bat too). This time it was his sixth test match when Vaas was awarded with Man of the match for his third five-wicket-haul. Vaas made his ODI debut in 1994 against India. During the 1996 world cup, Vaas was the regular bowler of his team and also helped the team to become the champions after Australia in the finals. Coming into the 2000 era, Vaas was a complete fast bowler in the world which was again witnessed during the 2001-02 season, when Vaas picked 26 wickets in the series against West Indies while playing at the subcontinent. Vaas holds the record of most wickets in the test match by the fast bowlers at subcontinent (Vaas picked 14 wickets in a test match, a milestone only Imran Khan had before Vaas joined him).

During the 2003 world cup, Vaas was the leading wicket-taker with 26 wickets in the tournament which featured his bowling spell of 6 wickets for 25 runs and hat trick against Bangladesh on the first three balls of the match.

Here is that Hattrick of Chaminda Vaas against Bangladesh during 2003 world cup –

In Sri Lanka Cricket History, Chaminda Vaas is the most successful left-arm fast bowler across the formats. In the entire Sri Lanka history, Vaas holds the best bowling figures with 8 wickets for 19 runs and Vaas is the only to take two hat tricks in the ODI Cricket History for Sri Lanka. Apart from bowling, Vaas was the good lower order batsman who scored over 5000 international runs which included one test century and 13 half-centuries along one half-century in ODI cricket too. In the first-class cricket career and List-A career, Vaas has over 1200 plus wickets at an average of below 27.