Washington couldn’t care less about labels

Is Washington Sundar a top-order batter who can bowl more than handy off-spin? Is he primarily an off-spinner who is a more than capable left-handed bat? Does it really matter? Must we succumb to the desire to pigeonhole cricketers? Batting all-rounder? Bowling all-rounder? Washington Sundar couldn’t care less what the world wants to label him as.

As far as he is concerned, his job is to deliver with the bat, with the ball and in the field. All of which he did, and quite brilliantly at that, on his return to Test cricket after more than three and a half years.

It’s true that Washington started off as a top-order bat in age-group cricket in Chennai and Tamil Nadu, but for some reason, as he worked his way up the levels, it was his bowling that seemed to appeal to those that make influential decisions. When Virat Kohli’s Royal Challengers Bengaluru procured him, for instance, the franchise captain used him as a new-ball operator in the Powerplay, though he didn’t get the same privilege under the same leader while playing for India.

In another classic case of compartmentalising players, Washington was quickly tagged a limited-overs specialist. A white-ball expert. When such perceptions emanate from the leadership group at the national level, it is impossible that they won’t trickle down to the other setups, which is why he has largely batted in the second half for either Tamil Nadu or South Zone or both.

Twist of fate

Washington made his One-Day International and T20 debuts back in December 2017 at home against Sri Lanka, but it took a twist of fate for him to wear the India colours for the first time in Test cricket. During the Covid pandemic phase when jumbo teams were the norm because of quarantine and other restrictions, he was part of a large bunch that travelled to Australia for a full tour in 2020-21. There was no hint that he would win a Test cap until India’s players kept dropping out with the regularity of falling autumn leaves. By the time the teams arrived in Brisbane for the final Test with the series level at 1-1, the entire Indian bowling group that started the first Test in Adelaide was unavailable for selection.

Among those ruled out was Washington’s Tamil Nadu colleague and ace off-spinner R Ashwin. The latter had braved a back injury to help India stave off Australia’s victory charge in Sydney alongside another wounded warrior, Hanuma Vihari (hamstring). At the Gabba, India were clutching at straws, struggling to put 11 fit men on the park. Hence the Washington debut, a debut to remember and savour and cherish, both individually and collectively.

Washington had a terrific all-round game — three for 89 and one for 80, backed up by 62 and 22, both under extreme pressure. The first came when India were gasping at 186 for six in reply to Australia’s 369 at a venue where the hosts hadn’t been conquered for more than three decades. Enter Washington, pleasingly flowing drives and excellent defence, to thwart Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood, Pat Cummins and Nathan Lyon for nearly four hours. Assured in defence and wondrous while playing his strokes, he thrilled a pro-Australian crowd at the Gabbatoir alongside Shardul Thakur, their 123-run seventh-wicket alliance taking India to within 33 of the Aussie total.

At the time, Washington wouldn’t have even imagined that that wouldn’t be his headline act. That came on the final day of a remarkable tour where India dug deep — any deeper, and ‘rock-bottom’ would have been grossly inadequate – and conjured a victory out of nowhere. Rishabh Pant was the face of that stunning fourth-innings chase but of the support acts that cropped up along the way, Washington didn’t suffer in comparison with Shubman Gill, Cheteshwar Pujara or stand-in skipper Ajinkya Rahane.

When Washington joined Pant, India were 265 for five, the Promised Land 63 runs away. With only Thakur and the bowlers to follow, the game was on a knife’s edge. Only, Pant and Washington didn’t believe so. In a jaw-dropping display of chutzpah and courage, Washington quickly took the pressure off Pant with a 29-ball cameo; included in that was a hook off Cummins with his right leg parallel to the ground, Caribbean-style, that soared deep into the stands behind the fine-leg fence. It was magical, mesmeric, unexpected, beautiful. In a way, it was the stroke that knocked the stuffing out of Australia, for good.

Washington’s reward for his productive debut was three of four Tests against England in February-March 2021, but after that, he was put out to red-ball pasture. Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja had either Axar Patel or Kuldeep Yadav for company at home and Washington kept plugging away, far removed from Test reckoning but still an important part of the two white-ball set-ups.

Until this season, when he was pushed up the order by Tamil Nadu, ostensibly following a little nudge from the Indian team management. In the off-season after the IPL, Washington worked on his off-spin with S. Sriram, the former India player who has been bowling consultant with several national teams, including Australia. His batting was in any case of the highest order – strong basics, tight defence, sparkling stroke-play which, flowing off a left-hander’s bat, appeals even more to the connoisseur and the aesthete. He had been asked to keep himself fit and relevant, what with five home Tests against Bangladesh and New Zealand to come.

Instantaneous reward

When Washington blazed to 152 against Delhi in a Ranji Trophy game 10 days back, the reward was instantaneous. The 152 came on a Saturday. On Sunday night, he was added to the Test side as a reinforcement. On Thursday, he played his fifth Test, at the MCA International Stadium in Pune. By Saturday evening, he had established himself as a strong contender for a place in the starting XI in Tests in Australia where India might go with two spinners.

Numerous eyebrows were raised when Washington was called up to the Test team. Didn’t they already have Axar Patel, another spinning all-rounder? Wasn’t Kuldeep Yadav, the left-arm wrist-spinner who had a wonderful time of it against the English earlier in the year, too in the squad? Why Washington?

Because of the ‘control’ he brings, head coach Gautam Gambhir told us. And because he can take the ball away from the left-handed batter, of whom there were three in the Kiwi top order. Maybe he was obliquely telling us in what bracket he, and the team, were placing Washington in.

Gambhir and Rohit would have been pleasantly shocked at how fantastically Washington bowled in Pune. Not just because he took seven for 59 in the first innings and four for 56 in the second, but because of how he was able to maintain his consistency and shape and energy through long spells. He was constantly probing, out-bowling his more experienced and established spinning colleagues, Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja. He showed himself to be a quick learner, dropping his pace and varying the angles. He fed off the two senior spinners’ wisdom but also used his own learnings to emerge as the biggest Indian threat to New Zealand, the best compliment he could have got considering that of his two spinning partners, one had more than 525 wickets and the other had just breached the 300-mark.

With the bat, he was most authoritative in both innings, even if the runs didn’t reflect that. In the first innings, batting surprisingly low at No. 9, he showed enterprise with the tail in making 18 not out. That earned him a promotion to No. 6 in the second innings, where he hardly looked out of place. For nearly an hour, he was comfortable in the middle even as the ball did its thing, eventually falling to a sharp catch at short-leg for 21.

As left-field decisions go — Washington wasn’t publicly in the running for a Test recall at the start of the international home season last month — this was quite the masterstroke. In a Test where India surrendered a proud record of having won every home series for 12 years and 18 instances successively, Washington offered them a window to the future. For a little while now, the life-after-Ashwin scenario has found mention in soft whispers. Last month, the giant from Chennai turned 38 and it’s safe to say that he is much closer to the end of his illustrious career than its beginning. It’s just possible that at some stage in the near future, he will hand over the reins to his younger mate from the same city, who might not possess the same bursting bag of tricks as the senior pro but who is still young enough, 25, to add exponentially to his craft.

For Washington, Pune will be a watershed Test. Pulled out from near-obscurity, he has enjoyed a comeback that players only dream about. Should his 11-wicket haul and his composed batting be a mere footnote because India lost the Test? Or should it be put in proper perspective and appreciated and eulogised because of the hope it has triggered, the excitement it has generated, with regard to the future?

The expectations on Washington will be massive going forward, just as they have been on Ashwin and Jadeja for so long now because of the standards they have set, the heights they have touched. From all evidence, he won’t be bogged down by that. After all, he is nothing if not a great believer in ‘God’s plan’.