Is Washington Sundar a victim of role confusion under Gautam Gambhir?

India continues to back Washington Sundar in T20Is, but data and experts like Ravichandran Ashwin suggest severe role confusion. Miscast as a finisher and rarely given his full bowling quota, the 26-year-old risks becoming a "bits-and-pieces" cricketer

New Delhi: Is Washington Sundar a batter who bowls decent off-spin? Or is he specialist off-break bowler who can also contribute a few runs when need be?

The question has circulated for some time but the way Indian team management has used the 26-year-old cricketer, it is now being asked openly.

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Does Gautam Gambhir and his team of support staff have actual clarity on what exactly is Washington’s role?

Neither in his 61 T20I appearances has he looked like a batter, who can finish games with brute power nor has he emerged as a spinner on whom opposition coaches would be burning midnight oil.

The result of mediocre performances in the shortest version is a term that once irked Ravindra Jadeja — bits and pieces cricketer. And Washington is not even close by a country mile when compared with Jadeja at his peak.

And Washington ain’t any spring chicken.

At 26, he has already spent almost decade in the senior dressing room having played his first game before his 18th birthday.

But when someone only gets to bat in 26 innings out of the 61 games with a strike-rate of less than 130, then he is certainly not a finisher.

And when the same person takes 51 wickets in 57 innings with an economy rate of just over 7, it can be at best termed decent and not even good. Add to it he has delivered 1049 legal deliveries which constitutes 18 balls per innings. That effectively means that on an average Washington has most of the times not given opportunity to finish his quota of overs.

With the strategic shift in T20Is powerplay batting, Washington, who entered the scene as an off-spinner who bowled with the new ball inside first six overs, isn’t being risked due to rampaging batters around the globe.

On Friday, against Ireland, he bowled a solitary over and that too was introduced in the 16th over of the innings. While batting, he got stuck and managed just 9 off 12 balls coming in at No.6.

But what’s more interesting is a pattern that emerged out of these numbers: 1, 2, 4, 4, 1.2, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2. In the last 12 T20Is that Washington played, these are the number of overs that he bowled in 10 innings (2 games in Australia were washouts). And a pattern has emerged since the time Washington has played under Gambhir.

While he manages to find a place in the team, in five of those 10 bowling innings — he bowled just one over. In a match, where he bowed 1.2 overs, he had actually polished off the Aussie tail getting his best T20I figures of 3/3.

Among the five times, he was been given a single over, on three occasions he was brought as first change and he got a wicket too but then wasn’t given a chance to bowl.

Now there is a more startling piece of analytics.

Out of 57 bowling innings (in 61 games) that he has bowled, only 25 times has he been given an opportunity to bowl full quota of overs. And whenever he has got that opportunity to bowl his full quota of four overs, his average economy rate has come down to 6.65 (compared to career ER of 7.05) and his strike-rate (balls per wicket) comes down to less than 20 compared to 22.2 when he bowls partial quota of overs.

Former India great Ravichandran Ashwin’s take on his Hindi YouTube show ‘Ash Ki Baat’ also seemed to corroborate these statistics.

“Washington has been backed by this team (management). He seems an automatic choice in this line-up. They are backing him but what I feel that even as they play him, there is no specific role for him. There are times he is on the field, he gets one over, at times, he doesn’t even get an over. If you guys remember, during T20 World Cup, they (team management) dropped vice-captain Axar Patel to play Washington. That much back up Washington is getting,” Ashwin said.

Ashwin seemed a bit perplexed that Washington is being used a finisher, a skill that perhaps doesn’t go with his domain expertise.

“Even in batting, they are using him as a finisher and he is not a finisher. He should have a floating role like Axar Patel used to be used by Rohit Sharma-Rahul Dravid duo.

It feels like a wrong role utilisation of Washington Sundar. If you really want to give Washington a long rope then bring him just after end of Powerplay. You will have to give him 4 overs like Axar. If you don’t give that full quota, how will you know if he can grow into that dependable all-rounder,” Ashwin said and couldn’t have explained it better.

While Ireland series isn’t actually a big deal, the lack of clarity will actually hurt Washington, who perhaps has more utility compared to a “bits and pieces” cricketer.