Pune is home to the world’s largest cricket museum, Blades of Glory. A brainchild of cricketer-turned-realtor Rohan Pate, it houses an impressive collection of 75,000 pieces of memorabilia from players around the world and across eras. Virat Kohli’s gloves, Sachin Tendulkar’s 2011 World Cup jersey, Allan Donald’s ragged spikes, Don Bradman’s willow, you name it. Washington Sundar might be contacted soon to bequeath his match ball after becoming the first Indian to take a five-wicket haul in the city.
The off-spinning all-rounder was added to the Test squad in the aftermath of India’s defeat against New Zealand in the series opener at Bangalore. ‘’They’re filled with left-handers in their 11. We want the option to take the ball away from the left-handers as well,’’ fielding coach Ryan Ten Doeschate had offered as justification for the call to rope in Sundar from outside the squad even though India had picked four spinners in the first place.
‘’It’s certainly not a desperate measure. We’ve got a lot of faith in the spinners we have. We just want to make sure we’re absolutely prepared for conditions.’’ Reading between the lines, one could establish that India wanted to kill two birds with one stone – add batting depth without compromising on the off-spinning element. After all, an archetypal low and slow black-soil turner was in order at Pune and Washington had recently racked up 152 against Delhi in the Ranji Trophy.
Another hypothesis that countervails the argument of Sundar’s inclusion being a knee-jerk reaction to India’s false start in the series is that the management was probably looking for control over subterfuge, which Kuldeep Yadav brings to the table, on this track that was designed to have enough demons in it. This rationale gained credibility with each passing New Zealand wicket as metronomic accuracy formed the bedrock of dismissals as much as technical artistry.
The mantra was simple. Attack the stumps, make the batters play and thereby give yourself the best chance to extract the juice of the deck. Washington got the memo, rattling timber on five occasions and catching a jumpy Daryl Mitchell in front of the sticks. New Zealand lost seven wickets for 62 runs after Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra hit fifties to take their team to 197/3, a slide that presumably could’ve been initiated earlier had India not carried the hangover from the enterprising Kiwi assault in Bangalore.
There, New Zealand hit 12 sixes in the first dig. Here, Ravichandran Ashwin found purchase to strike in his first over, the 8th of the innings. The conditions were chalk and cheese but India, unable to park away their leather-hunting travails last week, stationed in-out fields for their spinners from the very beginning. Not only were singles allowed to drip, too few fielders in the batter’s eyeline meant the New Zealand top-order didn’t have to take undue risks to keep the scoreboard moving.
Conway was a beneficiary of India’s defensiveness upfront. Roughed up by Jasprit Bumrah again after copping blows in Bangalore, he may have fancied a jailbreak against the off-spinners but India offered him the easy way out by putting men on the fence. Due to the strike rotation, neither Ashwin nor Washington could bowl a chunk of an over to a particular batter. Conway hung around and brought up his third fifty in the last four innings, kicking off the afternoon session by hitting Bumrah for three boundaries in an over.
New Zealand fetched 35 runs in the 8 overs post Lunch and by now the in-form Ravindra was switching gears too, having advanced to thump his namesake over long-on. ‘’Chalo yaar ladko, body language upar rakhenge’’ urged Rishabh Pant from behind the stumps, egging his teammates on to lift their spirits after Virat Kohli, rather uncharacteristically, misfielded thrice in the ring.
It was an intriguing juncture in the day’s play where the scales were genuinely balanced. New Zealand had built a solid foundation to launch from but India hadn’t let them off the hook completely. Washington was at his disciplined best in the morning session, conceding just 17 runs off his first 10 overs. New Zealand’s itch to stamp their authority on the proceedings led to an eventful phase replete with half-chances after Conway missed his second hundred in the subcontinent. Daryl Mitchell brought in more chaotic energy to the middle, contrasting the calm with which Rachin was going about his business. Something had to give, and Washington returned for his third spell to break the game open.
Whenever he bowled to left-handers he came wide of the crease from around the wicket to exaggerate the angle before taking the ball away. Rachin was drawn forward in defence as the ball drifted in before spinning sharply courtesy the revolutions imparted, leaving the southpaw flabbergasted as the zing bails perked up. So did Washington’s confidence, for the dream delivery assured him that, in spite of the three-and-a-half-year hiatus, he still belonged to Test cricket.
“I just wanted to keep hitting the right areas today because we expected that there would be something to offer, especially for the spinners. So, it was very important for the bowlers to be really up to date and that was the only thought on my mind and obviously, things like that, when it happens, it means a lot,” said Washington about that peach. “It’s magic.”
Although the slowness of the surface saw Indian spinners operate above 90kmph in order to find some extra zip and disallow the convenience of time on the backfoot, Washington played around with the seam orientation at release to make the ball behave differently. Ashwin is renowned for this two-card trick which bamboozled Steve Smith and Marnus Labuschagne in Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2023.
Even Tom Latham’s departure was plotted as such, although inversely, with Ashwin first undercutting the ball to set the batter up for the straighter one before tilting the seam towards leg-slip to generate turn and hit the pad. Washington executed the stratagem precisely to rip through the defences of Tom Blundell, whose attempt to tuck the ball to mid-wicket revealed that he was undone by the dip, anticipating the ball to land much closer to him.
Washington’s canniness in working with angles showed in the removal of Tim Southee, who gave India flashbacks of Sam Curran with his ebullient 65 in Bangalore, too as covering the angle of an arm ball from round the wicket proved to be too much of a task for the judgement of a biffer.
From a World Test Championsip standpoint India covet two victories at home before heading to Australia. The inspired, tactically astute selection of Washington Sundar has given them a headstart in that endeavour and in the grander scheme of things, fortified India’s off-spinning succession plans.
