The last 10 days have been very good indeed for Chaminda Vaas, who in three innings in Tests and one-dayers has returned combined figures of 65.2-21-210-22. He has taken a wicket every 9.54 runs; a wicket every three overs. The run started and ended with a catch behind the wicket by Kumar Sangakkara - off Chris Gayle in the third Test against West Indies and, 20 wickets down the line, Mluleki Nkala in the one-dayer against Zimbabwe. In between there were records aplenty: best bowling figures ever in a one-day international, first one-day hat-trick by a Sri Lankan, best match figures in Tests by a Sri Lankan seamer, and best match figures in Tests on the subcontinent by any seamer other than Imran Khan. Even more amazingly, Vaas had three times in a row taken more wickets than he has initials.

The record books don't have a page for seamless switches from whites to pyjamas, but as far as we have been able to establish, Vaas's one-two is largely unprecedented. Sachin Tendulkar did hammer 217 against New Zealand in the third Test at Ahmedabad in 1999-2000, before walloping 186 not out in the second one-dayer at Hyderabad a week later, but those innings sandwiched a couple of failures: 15 in the second innings of the Test, and 32 in the first one-dayer.

Then there was Matthew Hayden's Herculean performance for Australia in India earlier this year. His run of scores in international matches read: 119, 28*, 97, 67, 203, 35, 99, 57, 111, 36. But these came over a period of five weeks, and there were a few (relative) failures in there. In the modern age, nobody has done quite as much sustained damage as Vaas in such a short space of time. All very impressive, given that most people think that Sri Lanka's bowling attack consists of a man called Murali and not much else.

Rob Smyth is on the staff of Wisden.com

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