He played an extremely crucial role in the series for India.
Test cricket can be strange at times. Two teams battle it out for 45 days of exhilarating cricket, and none of them are victorious in the series. The ENG vs IND series ended at 2-2 after India’s emphatic display at The Oval earned them a six-run win. Throughout this series, many players from both the countries put up brilliant efforts to get their teams back into the game. The Indian team, however selected one player for his contributions in the Anderson Tendulkar Trophy. All-rounder Washington Sundar was awarded with the ‘Impact Player of the Series’ award in the Indian dressing room. Ravindra Jadeja presented the medal and award to the young all-rounder from Tamil Nadu.
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The all-rounder played four Test matches in the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy, and created an impact in almost each of those. Though he scored just a solitary fifty in the series, his most important contribution with the bat came in the fourth Test at Old Trafford. After India were massively trailing after a disappointing first innings, they were reduced to a score of 0/2 in the second. But skipper Shubman Gill rose to the occasion and registered his fourth ton of the series, scoring a gritty 103. The real challenge came after that, on the last day of the Test. But Washington Sundar stayed put along with Ravindra Jadeja to help India draw the Test, both scoring centuries on the way. This was the Test in which the handshake controversy unfolded.
Having said that, Sundar has been a menace with the ball in hand too. His four-wicket haul at Lord’s in the first innings propelled India towards reducing the risk of a huge first innings deficit. The manner in which he got England skipper Ben Stokes out was a testament to his bowling skill. Especially at the Lord’s, Sundar was getting a lot of drift in the air, and was able to generate a fair amount of spin from the wicket. This worked in his favour as he ended with figures of 4/22.
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First things first, the pitch at The Oval did not support spin. There was very little in it for the spinners. For context, just 21 overs were bowled by spinners in the entire Test match. Though Sundar did not have a role to play with the ball in hand, he made sure that his bat did all the talking. He scored a gritty 26 in the first innings, to take India’s score to a decent 396. The visitors took a 29-run lead and were bolstered by a century from Yashasvi Jaiswal in the second innings.
However, Sundar’s most important contribution of the series came in the second innings of the fifth Test. His knock of 53 is what took India to a lead of 373, setting the hosts a target of 374. But what was so special about a 53-run knock? It came when he was batting at nine. After Prasidh Krishna walked in to bat for the visitors, Sundar started attacking the bowlers, and registered a fifty. The all-rounder from Tamil Nadu showed how good he can be while batting with the tail-enders.
India won by a margin of six runs. Had the Washington Sundar knock been a bit shorter, the series would have resulted in a 3-1 instead of 2-2. The importance of this knock by Sundar played a huge role in India registering a victory at The Oval to draw the series level. Those 53 runs scored by him, might be as valuable as a century.
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