Washington Sundar's Oval blitz after Old Trafford stonewalling proves he can do just about anything

In Pune, he can rag off-breaks square and pick up 11 wickets. On raging Ahmedabad turners, he can nearly make hundreds batting with the tail. In Brisbane, he can hook Pat Cummins for six. When the surface beneath offers nothing, he can drift balls in the air and run through lineups at Lord’s. When a Test match needs saving and you’re a batter short, he’ll bat a day down in Manchester. And now we know, he can pulverise bowling attacks and score 39-ball fifties in south London.

When Mohammed Siraj dejectedly walked off after realising that his better-equipped teammates with the bat had used up all the reviews on the third afternoon at The Oval, India faced a deja vu moment. Josh Tongue had snared two wickets in an over, and was threatening to wipe out the much-talked about Indian tail again, having already shown the ability to do so earlier in the series.

India’s lead stood at 334. Another wicket soon and not only would the target not feel safe, England would also head into the run-chase with their tails up, momentum on their side. Sundar, as he has often had in his 13-Test career, had the dual duty of farming strike and adding crucial runs with the tail. While he has already displayed the skill and smarts to be able to do that in more familiar conditions back home, the manner in which Sundar shifted gears on the third evening was a revelation.

Before this knock, Sundar had only ever hit two sixes in a Test innings twice. Here, in a space of five balls, he smashed three. The bowlers tried different lines, lengths and angles, but the result didn’t change. Each ball disappeared, and each hit made the kind of crunch that would easily fit into compilations of the best-sounding shots in cricket.

In those five balls, Sundar snatched back any and every bit of momentum that England were hoping to gather. For the next few deliveries, the only place Tongue found it safe enough to bowl to him was so far out of his reach that he was called for wides twice in a row. A fourth six off Gus Atkinson in the next over brought up the fifth and easily the most flamboyant 50 of his Test career.

Having debuted in the IPL in 2017 (eight years ago by this point), Sundar has shown glimpses of range-hitting ability on occasions, but has rarely ever set the stage alight with his batting. In fact, before his Oval cameo, Sundar had not hit four sixes in an innings in any format, across domestic and international cricket.

Now, within a week, he has scored a match-saving hundred against Archer and Stokes from No.5, and followed it with a 39-ball blitz from No.9, making you wonder: what can he actually not do?

Highest Test averages among Indian players batting at No.8 or below (min 10 innings)

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Master of all trades: Sundar is one of a kind

Sundar’s Test journey so far has been a rather peculiar one. No one in the history of Test cricket who has scored more than 750 runs and taken more than 30 wickets has both a better batting and bowling average than him. Yet, until about 10 days prior, his inclusion in the playing XI used to raise eyebrows.

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The primary reason for that is a lack of a clear role and identity, bringing us back to the question - What is Washington Sundar?

Sundar’s debut in Australia came about because the team ran out of players to field. He then continued as the third spinner at home in Ravindra Jadeja’s absence due to injury, only for India to discover he can more than hold his own with the bat at this level. As Jadeja returned and Axar Patel emerged, he lost his spot.

Gautam Gambhir then brought him back out of nowhere three years later and he delivered with a seven-wicket haul in his first outing with the ball. The unreliability of the Indian fast bowlers with the bat meant he kept getting picked over Kuldeep Yadav in overseas Tests to provide batting depth. But the unfriendliness of the surfaces allowed for minimal usage with the ball, until he showed that he can beat batters in the air with unmatched levels of drift. And now, he’s put up two exceptional performances, both on extreme ends of the Test batting spectrum.

India almost always have better batters and better bowlers in the XI than him, but never anyone who can perform as many roles as well as him, which has made nailing down a role difficult. In a way, the sheer range of Sundar’s skills, with both bat and ball, has paradoxically proved too wide for his own good so far.

Washington Sundar's batting by position in Test cricket

Now that he has more or less sealed his place in the Test XI, irrespective of conditions and locations, that may change. India may soon start building plans around Sundar as a central figure instead of an afterthought supposed to plug whatever gap exists. There are already calls to try him out as the new No.3, a position India have been playing musical chairs with anyway. Some feel he should get a permanent spot in the top seven, and some are convinced he’ll be a better second spinner even on unhelpful pitches than whatever fourth-seamer options India have.

But is there really a need to pigeonhole him into a particular role?

Sundar embodies the ideal modern-day multi-skilled cricketer. He is your typical ‘bits-and-pieces’ player, but supercharged. Not a batter who can bowl and a bowler who can bat, he’s a batter and a bowler, full stop. Trying to confine him into a defined role might unnecessarily limit the value he can provide. Counterintuitive as it may sound, maybe the best use of Sundar would be to let him float around as per requirement. It might even be the next step in the evolution of Test cricket, where teams look to invest in such multi-utility players, moving away from specialists, as the rising trend of the 'False Three'already indicates they are.

Either way, whether Sundar’s brilliance leads to a paradigm shift in Test cricket or not, this Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy has answered what Washington Sundar is: he is everything, all at once.