INDIA TOUR OF ENGLAND 2025
Wshington Sundar bagged four wickets on the fourth day to turn the tide of the Lord’s Test ©Getty
At the end of a pulsating fourth day at Lord’s, Washington Sundar’s press conference carried a curious rhythm. The word “definitely” surfaced exactly a dozen times, slipping regularly through his measured answers. It wasn’t bluster or bravado, just a quiet verbal tick, a gentle insistence that India would ‘definitely’ claim victory, even as the Test hung delicately in the balance. It was a usage that lingered in the air, much like the 25-year-old himself on the field: seemingly drifting in and out of sight, until, suddenly, he drifted sharply into focus.
The morning of the day’s play had carried much the same rhythm. While the quicks steamed in – Jasprit Bumrah bending knees and arching his spine, Mohammed Siraj surging ball after ball in bursts of effort and intent – Washington lingered on the fringes. Head slightly tilted, shirt partially untucked, occasionally clapping, mostly ambling at cover or square leg like a man browsing a bookshop rather than one about to be called up for a collective bowling fight in a tight Test.
Appearances, as ever, deceive. But then again, it’s always been that way with Washington. Drifting, and then drifting suddenly into focus.
Think Gabba, January 2021. A net bowler for most of the tour, watching from the sidelines. Then injury after injury left India fielding a team stitched together from what was left, and there he was, suddenly debuting in the deciding Test of a series for the ages. Steady with the ball, composed with the bat in a stand with Shardul Thakur, and then memorably hooking Pat Cummins for six on the final day, as though he was there to do that all along.
Think Pune last year. Playing Ranji Trophy cricket when India, trailing 0-1 against New Zealand, called him into the squad and thrust him into the XI. Seven wickets and another sudden turn into the spotlight.
In this series, Washington was around but not expected to feature, despite being a Gautam Gambhir favourite. Two spinners in England? That hardly ever happens. And if it did, surely the second spinner would have to be Kuldeep Yadav, with his wrist-spin adding variety to India’s attack. Yet there Washington was at Edgbaston, quietly backing the team’s call by stitching a century stand with Shubman Gill and then dismissing Ben Stokes on the brink of lunch on the final day.
And here he was again at Lord’s, with the soft Dukes ball in England’s second innings. After Bumrah had looked to take a wicket every over but never actually managed one. After Siraj’s afternoon burst had ended with a painful ‘Umpire’s Call’ verdict against Joe Root.
Perhaps Washington was picked more for his insurance as a No.8 batter and to give control with the ball, allowing the seamers to rest and rotate. But that alone wouldn’t cut it with the Test now into its third innings and Root and Stokes threatening to take the game away with their partnership. India’s management had spoken often of choosing attacks built to take 20 wickets. Now was the time to show it. Because every run England added was another run India would have to chase batting last on a pitch beginning to offer more than the occasional mischief.
It was then that Washington revealed the other side of his drift. Not just a mannerism. A method. A craft. If his dismissal of Stokes in Birmingham had seemed a quirk of blustery afternoon breeze, a ball that drifted into the left-hander about five degrees and straightened three, the numbers once again began to back it up. India’s offspinner was generating more than twice the amount of drift as any other spinner at Lord’s. It was all quiet revolutions, probing lengths, and a ball almost always honing in on the stumps.
His first breakthrough was Root, trying to get his front foot outside the line to sweep, only for the ball to drift in subtly and bowl him behind his back leg. Washington’s next act, removing India’s scourge of the series so far, Jamie Smith, was textbook off-spin: drifting into the right-hander again, straightening against the angle and with the slope and pegging back the off-stump.
Post-Tea, it was Stokes again. The England captain swept a full ball away, somewhat unconvincingly for four, but it was Washington who claimed moral victory. Adjusting his field, he stationed a deep square leg and brought in a short fine leg. Stokes, now forced to slog towards cow-corner, missed a sweep encore and lost his stumps. The significance of those three scalps and that Stokes wicket was felt not just in India’s celebrations but in the small theatre that followed. As India swarmed around their spinner, the ball that had knocked the stumps rolled all the way toward the boundary by the MCC Members Stand, only to be chucked back into play with quiet disgust by the England captain on his way back to the pavilion, a sign of the shifted tides.
Washington would account for Shoaib Bashir as well, closing with 4 for 22 from 12.1 overs and giving India a target under 200 to chase. Of the 73 balls he bowled, 31 were projected to hit the stumps. Four of them did, thanks to a mix of pace, choice of length, and most importantly, drift.
And the beauty of it all was how understated it felt. By the end of three innings, India stood within reach of a series lead. The quicks had done their share. But Lord’s – a venue that has seen only 18% of overs in the last three years bowled by spin – had been quietly claimed by a spinner who doesn’t so much force himself into the frame as gently wander into it. A ‘definitely maybe’ in a team, whose biggest value is perhaps not with the ball, but the calm assurance of runs in the lower order. Qualities that might drift back into focus if India are to push and complete another memorable Lord’s win on the final day.
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