By dismissing Yuvraj Singh in the fourth ODI against India in Colombo, Chaminda Vaas became the fourth bowler to take 400 ODI scalps, the second Sri Lankan after Muttiah Muralitharan. The exclusive club consists of only bowlers from the subcontinent: Pakistan's Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis being the other two. Following are a few highlights of Vaas' ODI career:
In 320 innings he's bowled in, Vaas has always opened the bowling for Sri Lanka. Vaas is way ahead of the pack; Manoj Prabhakar, with 127 innings, is next in the list of bowlers who have always opened the bowling through their ODI career. In Tests too, Vaas has always taken the new ball whenever he's bowled. Vaas has fared much better in day games in comparison to day-night affairs. In day games, his 215 wickets have come at 24.98 apiece, while he averages 30.49 for his 185 scalps in day-night matches. Vaas also makes effective use of favourable conditions early on in day games: he has taken 133 first-innings wickets at an average of 22.10, which increases to 29.65 for his 82 wickets in the second. Of his 400 wickets, 241 comprise Nos 1-3 in the opposition line-up, just a measure of Vaas' value to the Sri Lankan attack. Vaas' cunning use of movement and slower deliveries have often deceived batsmen into offering catches: 239 of his victims have been caught, with 90 lbw and only 60 bowled - he has worked out his wickets, rather than beaten batsmen with sheer pace. Vaas even has a stumping to his name, with the keeper often standing up to the stumps against him in recent years. Vaas has dismissed Stephen Fleming 11 times in 29 matches, Saeed Anwar 11 times in 38, Adam Gilchrist 10 in 27, Herschelle Gibbs 9 in 24, Sourav Ganguly 9 in 33 and Sachin Tendulkar 9 in 49. Yuvraj was the 76th batsman to be dismissed for a duck by Vaas; only Wasim Akram has done it on more occasions. Vaas, though, has a long way to catch up, Akram had scalped 110 batsmen for 0. Vaas has dismissed Fleming and Gibbs for a duck four times. Eight of those 76 batsmen have been dismissed on the first ball of the innings, a record for any bowler. The next-best are Pollock and Akram, who have taken a wicket with the first ball of an innings on four occasions.Inputs provided by HR Gopalakrishna, a Bangalore-based statistician
