Vijaykanth Viyaskanth shows how Tamil roots unite India and Sri Lanka

Towhid Hridoy, playing for Jaffna Kings, had a decent chance of winning the Player of the Match award of the Lanka Premier League (LPL) opener last night after hitting a match-winning fifty. But instead, it was given to young leg-spinner Vijaykanth Viyaskanth who picked up two crucial wickets.

But why a piece on a Sri Lankan cricketer who the world barely knows? Those who follow Sri Lankan cricket can realise his cricketing journey is not just about cricket. It transcends the game.

If one does a deep-dive into the history of Sri Lankan cricket, they will see it's mainly a "Sinhalese" game with most of the cricketers being from the community that constitute about 75% of the population. The number of prominent cricketers from the Sri Lankan Tamil and Muslim communities is very low even today.

Cricket used to be a sport based mostly in Colombo and Kandy but it expanded after Sri Lanka's World Cup win in 1996. But it wasn't the case for the Sri Lankan Tamils. By the late 1980s, militancy and an interminable war had taken hold in the Tamil-speaking Northern and Eastern areas. Sports there, particularly cricket, were severely harmed by this.

Before the war, great cricketers came from that region. Mahadevan Sathasivam who started his career in the 1940s was called the "greatest batsman on earth" by Sir Garry Sobers. There were Tamil players in the 1975 World Cup squad and in the 1980s as well before the war changed everything. 

It changed the life of many. Young boys fresh out of school were inspired to pick up guns and grenades. Thus the dream of picking up the bat and ball harboured by many in that region nipped in the bud.

One of them is M Kandeepan. Now in his 50s, he used to be a massively popular cricketer in Jaffna, once Sri Lanka's second-most populous city. There are stories suggesting that Kandeepan wanted to play for Sri Lanka but being a northern Tamil during wartime, he never got the chance to even try. Many believe he could be one of the finest in the country. 

The city of Jaffna had been for years a major stronghold of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) from the 1980s to when the civil war ended in 2009. For years, there had been no prominent cricketer born-and-bred in Jaffna until Vijaykanth Viyaskanth made his T20 debut three years ago.

One can argue that Muttiah Muralitharan, one of the greatest-ever cricketers, is a Tamil. But he was born in Kandy and studied there as well. 

Last year, Ravichandran Ashwin revealed that commentator Russel Arnold had approached and informed him that Viyaskanth had requested to contact him. 

"Viyaskanth said that I, Ravichandran Ashwin, was his idol [also a Tamil like Viyaskanth] who has been playing for India for a long time and he would like to receive tips from me," he said in 2022.

Yesterday while receiving the POTM award, Viyaskanth said he regularly speaks to Ashwin on Instagram and the Indian spinner wished him luck ahead of the match. 

Now, the relationship between an Indian Tamil and a Sri Lankan Tamil can be a tense one. Actor Vijay Sethupathi had to step away from Muttiah Muralitharan's biopic amid severe backlash. A statement from Muralitharan in 2009 was taken out of context and still many believe he supported the killings of many innocent civilians which is clearly not true. Also, Sri Lankan cricketers were once banned from playing in Chennai during the IPL for "security concerns".

Ashwin learned to bowl the "carrom ball", one of his most trusted weapons, after watching Ajantha Mendis. Now he is passing on the knowledge to another Sri Lankan Viyaskanth. 

Viyaskanth, most notably, is the first cricketer from Jaffna to appear in a televised game. 

In sports, often you need idols to look up to. 

Khulna division can be called a cricketing hub in Bangladesh and surely Mashrafe Mortaza has a huge influence behind that. He is the first cricketer from that division who had a long and successful career. He took Bangladesh cricket by storm when he first came in and it certainly inspired budding cricketers there. Later big names like Shakib Al Hasan, Abdur Razzak, Mustafizur Rahman, Soumya Sarkar, Mehidy Hasan Miraz, Rubel Hossain represented Bangladesh from that division.

Being such a figure from Jaffna, Viyaskanth can be an inspiration to many. He has done reasonably well in T20s so far in his short career. Impressed by his bowling, Kumar Sangakkara recommended his name as a net bowler for Rajasthan Royals and said, "I wish to see him soon in Sri Lanka colours". Ashwin said in his YouTube video, " Viyaskanth, I have been following your journey". Not only Ashwin, many in Jaffna will be following his journey too. They need a hero, an idol and Vijaykanth Viyaskanth can be just that.