Sunrisers Hyderabad have signed 22-year-old Sri Lanka legspinner Vijayakanth Viyaskanth as a replacement for the injured Wanindu Hasaranga at his reserve price of INR 50 lakh. Hasaranga was officially ruled out of IPL 2024 on Saturday owing to chronic pain in his heel that initially delayed his arrival for the tournament.
Viyaskanth first rose to prominence in December 2020, when he became the youngest player at 18 years and 364 days to feature in the Lanka Premier League for Jaffna Stallions. In that tournament, he also became the first born-and-bred player from Jaffna, in Sri Lanka’s northern tip and once the epicenter of a three-decade-long civil war, to appear in an internationally televised game.
He represented Sri Lanka at the 2023 Asian Games in Hangzhou in one T20I and impressed with eight wickets in four outings at an economy of 5.43 for title winners MI Emirates – where Mahela Jayawardene is the global head of performance – at the ILT20.
Rajasthan Royals’ director of cricket…