Washington Sundar wasn’t supposed to be in Pune for the second Test against New Zealand. He was supposed to be in Coimbatore with his Tamil Nadu team-mates for the Ranji Trophy. He was not in India’s Test squad three days ago. Before Thursday, he had last played a Test match three-and-a-half years ago. As it turned out, he made a serendipitous return to Test cricket, bagging career-best figures of 7 for 59.
“It was all God’s plan,” Washington said.
Washington. Pune. God’s plan. Sounds familiar?
In 2017, Washington Sundar had originally gone unsold at the IPL auction, but after an injury to R Ashwin, he bowled Steven Smith at a trial with Rising Pune Supergiant, and they picked him to replace the senior offspinner. At 17, Washington emerged as a powerplay specialist in T20 cricket.
Seven years later, at the scene of his T20 emergence, Washington showed he could grow into an all-format player. Ravi Shastri certainly saw it coming, telling ESPNcricinfo he would go on to become India’s “premier allrounder across all three formats of the game.”
But even Shastri couldn’t have seen Thursday coming.
It’s fairly unusual for this India team to make additions to their squad in the middle of a home Test series unless there are any concerns around players’ fitness or availability. While there were hints on Tuesday that Washington might play on a low-bounce, black-soil pitch in Pune – he had a long bowling stint alongside Ashwin in the nets – it still felt like a stretch that he would replace Kuldeep Yadav in India’s attack. And no one could have expected him to do that, and then outshine Ashwin
Washington ended up matching Ashwin’s career-best Test figures exactly, with the senior offspinner clapping his potential successor off the field at the end of New Zealand’s innings.
At the start of the day, it was all about Ashwin. Midway through the seventh over, bowled by Jasprit Bumrah, Rohit Sharma gestured Ashwin to be ready to bowl. Ashwin got his fifth ball to turn and pin New Zealand captain Tom Latham lbw. Ashwin then had Will Young caught down the leg side with another offbreak that turned. It felt like Ashwin and India were onto something. Fans scrambling for shelter from the sweltering heat quickly filled up the stands.
Washington wasn’t having quite the same effect on the Pune crowd, but he was quietly working his way back into Test cricket. There were signs of rust, especially when he bowled short and wide of off stump to Young with the leg side packed with six fielders.
Then came the ball to Rachin Ravindra.
Washington went wide of the crease from around the wicket and put more revs on the ball, which led first to dip and then turn. There was also inward drift, which led Ravindra to play down the wrong line. The ball slid past the outside edge and hit the top of off, providing a flashback to Ashwin’s dismissals of Alastair Cook in both innings of the 2018 Edgbaston Test.
2:47
Washington opens up on Ashwin’s influence
The two India offspinners combined to pick up all 10 New Zealand wickets in Pune
For much of his career, Washington’s bowling has been tuned to the demands of white-ball cricket, and has generally been characterised by pace through the air and flatter trajectories often delivered with undercut. Of late, he has worked on refashioning himself into a more conventional offspinner. After IPL 2024, where he finished with zero wickets and zero runs in all of two games for Sunrisers Hyderabad, he called up S Sriram, the former India and Tamil Nadu allrounder who has worked with Australia and Bangladesh as a spin consultant, for his inputs on how he could become an all-format bowler. Having already worked with Washington at Royal Challengers Bangalore, Sriram suggested a few technical tweaks.
“So one thing we spoke about was his run-up speed, you know, just get more energy into his run-up rather than just ambling, and more of overspin,” Sriram, who was following Washington’s spell from Chennai, told ESPNcricinfo. “He had a little bit of a finger issue also recently, so he was recovering from that. So one of the things we spoke about is always going back to that overspin, which gives him more bounce. And overspin is possible only when you have that momentum in the run-up.
“If you don’t have momentum in the run-up, it’s very difficult to get that overspin. One of the things we discussed was obviously bounce was his main weapon. And how he can use that to his advantage in both white ball and red-ball cricket.”
In his next over, Washington got the ball to drift away from Tom Blundell, then dip and rip through the gate. Washington is usually a man of few emotions, but this wicket meant so much to him that he brought out an animated fist pump. Washington was primarily picked to counter a left-hander-heavy New Zealand line-up. This was evidence that he could pick off the right-handers as well.
“I think once he gets that seam angle right and the release right, and with the revs, automatically the drop and the drift takes care of itself,” Sriram said. “He used the shine to get the drift with the right seam angle. And also, if the seam is upright, it drops. Like that Blundell one, it dropped on him a little bit. He went to play with the spin, but the slight drift and drop got the wicket.”
Washington then kept hitting the drier, good-length band on the pitch with laser-like precision and kept the stumps in play. He was rewarded with five more wickets in nine overs.
“The first two spells, I think he was settling in,” Sriram said. “He was finding the right pace and also the right sort of rhythm. But once he got those two wickets around tea, his confidence also built up. It just happened so quickly for him, which made it look casual. But it wasn’t that casual.”
Gautam Gambhir welcomed Washington back into the dressing room with a round of applause and a big smile. Like Shastri, Gambhir sees an all-format player in Washington. He had trusted him with bowling the Super Over in the Pallekele T20I in July, and Washington responded by bowling India to victory from out of nowhere.
Gambhir then promoted Washington up the order to No.4 in the next match – the first ODI in Colombo. He didn’t score too many in that game, but his batting potential is clear: he already has three Test fifties including match-turning interventions in Brisbane and Ahmedabad, and his Pune call-up came on the back of a Ranji Trophy 152 while batting at No. 3.
Sriram is hopeful of Washington coming of age as an allrounder under Gambhir, with whom he worked as an assistant coach at Lucknow Super Giants.
“Yeah, I think credit to Gauti also,” Sriram said. “Because I think he always rates him high. Whatever little conversations I’ve had with Gauti in LSG also, he always rated Washy very high. And he is someone, I think, he’ll use him very well as an allrounder. Both with bat and ball, he’ll promote him in certain times with the bat. And he’ll make best use of him with the ball as well and give him the ideal situations where he can succeed in all formats of the game.”
Perhaps that, then, is God’s long-term plan.