CHENNAI: A glance at all of Washington Sundar’s Instagram page reveals two broad themes. He is big time into fitness — one will need several hands to count the number of gym-based equipment in his pictures — and considers himself as a batsman. Even if he has made a name as a T20 bowler who likes to choke opposition hitters inside the opening six overs, his pictures reveal something different. One image, posted 20 months ago, shows him essaying the perfect lofted drive, with him admiring his own art after the fact.
You can make a case for saying he has played several of those in the last month itself. If hooking Pat Cummins for six in Brisbane was the opening page of the catalogue in international red-ball cricket, he added several new pages to that burgeoning document on Monday. In a knock that stayed true to his second name across both days, Washington was at his best when hitting those boundaries off both spinners and pacers on his home ground. What makes him such an attractive prospect is the time he has. It also helps that a high percentage of his scoring shots are boundaries: out of the 85 runs he scored, 60 came in boundaries. And not one of them were streaky. While the cricketing fraternity was surprised, his father certainly wasn’t. “It was a superb effort from him,” he told this daily
“He has put in a lot of hard work before the series. I’m not surprised with the way he played today. Only those who have not seen him play will doubt his ability. He is a natural opening batsman right from his U-19 days. I always knew that if he gets an opportunity he will prove his worth as a batsman. I have trained with him for hours on the backfoot and frontfoot. So Washington was well prepared to take on England.
“Right from his U-19 days he has scored heavily at the top. Even for Tamil Nadu he has a century as a opener. The fact that he remained unbeaten against an attack comprising of Anderson, Archer and Ben Stokes shows that he belongs to the international level. He played with maturity and responsibility. It was evident in the way he hit the sixes.”