India signed Washington Sundar prior to the second Test match against New Zealand in Pune. In the visitor’s Bengaluru adventures, New Zealand southpaws like Devon Conway and Rachin Ravindra played a crucial role. The spin-friendly MCA deck, facing the southpaws, and further batting advantage down the order led to Sundar’s participation.
When the Tamil Nadu all-rounder wreaked havoc on Day 1 by taking seven wickets for just 59 runs, the move proved crucial. Even though Sundar was a good addition to the team, former player Sunil Gavaskar appeared uneasy about the choice when the 25-year-old was added in favour of Kuldeep Yadav. “Kuldeep could also take the ball away from the New Zealand left-handers,” he joked.
“What a brilliant choice. He can bowl and bat a little bit, which is why he was selected for the XI. I can see that the Indian squad was concerned about their hitting since they selected Washington Sundar. He is in because he can score more runs at the lower order in addition to his off-spin, Gavaskar stated in his commentary.
After the toss earlier in the day, Gavaskar made a suggestion that he would have chosen Kuldeep Yadav for this match instead of Washington Sundar since he did not like his pick.
Yes, I believe that the quantity of left-handers in the New Zealand batting lineup has been discussed a lot, but if I were to choose one more player, I would have chosen someone like Kuldeep Yadav, who has the ability to turn the ball away from left-handers. He has good batsmanship as well. Of course, not as high-scoring as Sundar,” he continued.
Rachin Ravindra, Daryl Mitchell, and Glenn Phillips were among the crucial wickets that Sundar took in his seven-fer.
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The BlackCaps were consequently bowled out for a mere 259 runs. India lost Rohit Sharma quickly after starting their innings, but they ended up scoring 16 runs with Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal in the middle.
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