PUNE: On Day One of Tests in India, it's a common sight to see players clap R Ashwin off the field. On Thursday, Ashwin was the one doing the clapping after Washington Sundar, playing his first Test in over three years (England at Ahmedabad in March 2021), picked up the final New Zealand wicket.
It was his seventh scalp across two sessions during a passage of play when the younger of the two Tamil Nadu spinners spun a web around the visiting batters.
It was one Hollywood ball to dismiss Rachin Ravindra which turned Washington's unexpected India cap from decent to promising. By the time the 25-year-old had walked off with the ball, his figures of 7/59 matched Ashwin's career-best. That's a statistical quirk but within the context of the first innings, he out-bowled the other spinners.
In the process, he also vindicated the faith the support staff showed in him when they named in the XI, at the expense of Kuldeep Yadav.
That call, after two hours of play on Thursday, was looking iffy, to say the least. On a black soil surface with low, slow turn - both teams perhaps expected the ball to turn more but there's already enough purchase for the tweakers - the visitors were off to a good start after winning the toss.
At lunch (2/92), they would have been the happier of the two sides. While Washington wasn't too shabby, he was perhaps a shade quicker as well as a touch fuller. His 0/11 hadn't cost the hosts much but the pair of Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra had to be separated at all costs without allowing them to build.
The pressure, then, was on the offie as he had specifically been drafted in as a point of difference against the Kiwis' southpaw-heavy top-order.
"We just felt that they have four of five left-handers in the playing XI," coach Gautam Gambhir had said a day before the match. "If we want to have another bowler who can take the ball away from the left-handers, it is always going to be useful for us. But we haven't decided the playing XI."
Ashwin did take care of Conway but Washington was yet to make a big impact in the game. With Ravindra playing the 38-year-old in an untroubled manner, the hosts could ill-afford another masterclass from him. Step forward Washington, who produced a dream offspinner's delivery.
It pitched in a good length area around off-stump, turned enough just to evade Ravindra's outside edge before hitting his off-stump (think Ashwin against Alastair Cook at Birmingham in 2018). He had gone slightly wider of the crease, got the right amount of purchase to beat the bat but not enough to miss the stumps.
Till last week, the 25-year-old was playing Ranji Trophy for Tamil Nadu, not knowing when but if he would ever get to play for India in a Test again (it's not that the team management didn't rate him. They like him - even the previous regime liked him - but he had already too many injuries).
Less than a week later, he had conjured a ball from his dreams to potentially kickstart a series of saving spells for the hosts. After the day's play, he attributed his spell to 'God's plan'. "It (Ravindra's wicket) was a dream ball," he said. "Magical."
Once he was done with sprinkling gold dust, he settled into the kind of rhythm he was picked for; stump-to-stump, nothing extravagant or flashy and bringing control. Because he attacks the stumps and doesn't turn the ball by any great measure, the stumps are always in play. Hence, it was no surprise that five of his seven victims were either bowled or leg-before.
Tom Blundell and Daryl Mitchell followed soon after, across three runs and four balls. The visitors, who were in a position of strength, had lost their way a bit.
Mitchell Santner, who had done some range hitting on Wednesday, struck a few blows to win back some initiative after tea. However, the younger of the two TN spinners polished off the tail to hasten the Black Caps' denouement.