India’s off-spinner Washington Sundar has opened up on his defining spell in the second innings after India won by an innings and 300 runs in the one-off Test match against Afghanistan at New Chandigarh on Monday.
After taking one wicket in the first innings, Sundar bagged impressive figures of 4-36 in the second innings. Sundar said he was getting the rhythm from the get-go in the second essay.
Sundar said in the post-match interview with Star Sports, “I felt really good, especially to play this format after a while. Yeah, I just wanted to get a lot of volume coming into the game and obviously I felt like I was getting the rhythm right from the scratch, from ball one. And that was definitely a very good feeling.”
Highlighting his strategy, Washi added, “I mean, nothing of that sort. I didn’t really think about the pace as such. I was just working on getting my rhythm right. And especially yesterday I was bowling really well. The way the ball was coming out of my hand, I was really pleased with it. And obviously this morning I got to keep the consistency and the rest of the wickets did have something for us.”
The off-spinner said he wanted to bowl stump-to-stump and wanted to stick to the basics against the visitors.
Washi stated, “Yes, towards the end I sort of wanted to bowl a little wide, but apart from that, I wanted to be as close to the stumps as possible. And obviously get those lengths really right because this wicket is a little slow. And I mean, if you’re going to bowl a good length or a little back of length, the batsmen just did have a little bit of time to actually go in the back foot and sort of manoeuvre. So I had to really get lengths really right in this wicket.”
Furthermore, the left-handed batter scored 52 runs off 68 balls, scoring his sixth Test fifty.
He concluded by talking about his half-century, stating, “Definitely, it felt really good, both with the bat and the ball. I wanted to show good discipline with the bat and glad the way I sort of approached the entire innings and God was kind.”
Sundar would aim to carry the good form.
