Vijaya had his first season in the first eleven at Royal College under the captaincy of Darrel Lieversz, he stated that it was the finest team he has ever played, everyone was behind Lieversz and the team gelled very well.
In January they played Ananda College who had a tremendous line up including Sarath Wimalaratne, T.D. Rajapakse, Duminda Siriwardene you name it they had it, stated Vijaya. He got 43 and ultimately Ananda had to get something like 80 odd runs and with the batting line up they had it was a walk in the park for them. But Thiagaraja the off spinner had other ideas and routed them and they lost the match by 17 runs. In that year the deadly pace combination of Darrel Lieversz and Channaka de Silva, the former with his late inswing and the latter with his pronounced outswing wrought havoc among the school batsmen. Royal’s batting was nothing to write home about except for S.D. Jayaratne and S.S. Kumar, even with low totals they managed to have eight wins because every player was solidly behind Darrel. Royal had five freshers. In 1963 Vijaya batted brilliantly throughout and in the Royal-Thomian he went into bat when they were 35 for 3 and soon after it was 42 for 4. Then C.M. Fernando and Vijaya put on 165 runs for the sixth wicket which is unbroken todate. Vijaya got 124 with 20 fours and a six, and it is still remembered as perhaps the best hundred played at a Royal-Thomian match. Vijaya became the schoolboy cricketer of the year as well as the best batsman that year.That event was sponsored by ‘Dia Shirts’.
Vijaya played cricket for Cambridge with C.E.M. Ponniah, and both got their blues. Vijaya enjoyed his cricket as well as the social life where they used to have rollicking parties practically every weekend. Vijaya whilst playing against Glamorgan hooked Jeff Jones (played for England) for six but his foot got stuck in the mud as the body swivelled and he was carried off the field which he said was a record of sorts - scoring a six and being carried off. Unfortunately that ended his cricketing career for a while. Later he was selected to play for Ceylon on the tour to England.
Vijaya was called to the bar in England in 1970 and returned to Sri Lanka and practised for two and a half years. He then joined Ceylon Tobacco as the director legal affairs where he honed his skills as an administrator.
Chandrika Bandaranaike, the ex President of Sri Lanka asked him to become the chairman of the cricket board in 2001. He had Michael Tissera, Kushil Gunasekera, Asantha de Mel and Sidath Wettimuny to assist him. They were the people who ran cricket and he administered cricket by letting the experts guide cricket and he concentrated on administration. He stressed the fact that he was a bit rusty in cricket and acknowledged the fact that his knowledge of cricket then could be written in the back of a stamp. He went on to state that the techniques have changed and other aspects as well.
Vijaya got a cricket committee set up consisting of past captains (after a lot of persuasion he roped in Arjuna Ranatunga) then he got Michael, Sidath and Duleep. They decided everything on cricket and brought it to the executive committee meetings. Vijaya informed them of his views, if they agreed they could go ahead and if they did not agree then he would be overruled and that was how he ran the show. He knew what to do and would never venture into unchartered territory. He had a damn good set of selectors headed by Kapila Wijegunawardene and Co. Anyhow over an issue they resigned, the issue was the selectors wanted to experiment in the Zimbabwe tour at the expense of Marvan Atapattu and skipper Sanath Jayasuriya disagreed and wanted to contact the Minister. Vijaya okayed but would not change the team.The Minister was clueless and overruled the selectors and they resigned. A new set of selectors were appointed and two of them were Sidath Wettimuny and Michael Tissera.
Vijaya addressed the team at the Taj Samudra before the Test Match in Galle and told them in no uncertain terms that if they short circuited the system again he would sue them for vicarious damages, and publish how much they were paid. They were stunned into silence. Vijaya was firm and the team got the message. Then P.M. wanted Vijaya to resign so that someone else could be accommodated, Vijaya took three months to put the finishing touches and then he resigned on his own accord.
Under Vijay Malalasekera tenure as the chairman of the Cricket Board they had the most number of Test wins. Chris Martin-Jenkins and Vijaya played together at Cambridge. Vijay mentioned that Martin-Jenkins broke protocol by inviting Sangakkara, who was playing cricket at the time to deliver the Cowdrey lecture.
Vijaya stressed that we should change the constitution to get out of the present mess. Sri Lanka has 136 votes whereas in India with 2 billion people they have only 20 or 30 votes.The simple solution is to change the constitution and go back to the Tier 3 Sara, Donovan and Daily News system, and also to appoint people with absolute integrity. To install the winner and the runner-up of Sara, and the winner of Donovan and the winner of Daily News that four members will be on the executive committee from the clubs, to make it a board of eleven, and the balance is filled up with lawyers, accountants and high profile professionals who have integrity in mind.
This council of cricket will appoint the CEO, Marketing Manager etc. The budget should be approved by the council and they then know where the money went and came. The powers that the cricket council have will keep politicians at bay, and this can be done only by an act of parliament, otherwise you may be depriving the voting rights of the people who have a right to vote, concluded Malalasekera.
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