Washington Sundar made his international debut as an 18-year-old in the ODI against Sri Lanka at Mohali in December 2017. Since then, after some ups and downs, he has now become a regular pick in Indias white-ball squads.
Through his steady off-spin and some useful finishing touches with the bat, Washington provides a different variety into the spin all-rounders cupboard in the Indian team.
Ahead of ODIs against Australia, the all-rounder in an exclusive interview with IANS revealed that what he has worked on in the practice sessions in the past six-eight months, it worked during the matches and it made him feel happy.
Excerpts of the interview:
Q. What have been the learnings for you from the white-ball matches you played for India earlier in this year?
A. It's great to play a lot of games as it would give you a lot of takeaways and you get to learn a lot about different aspects of the game, as well as your knowledge about the game also improving.
So, there have been lots of takeaways in the last few months -- wherever I felt I could get a little better on, I have been trying to execute in practice sessions and try to become one percent better every single day in the game. It's a process and I will keep pushing myself to get better in every aspect of the game.
Q. Of late, you have been in great touch with the bat. Can you talk about the improvements you have made to get good results in matches for India?
A. It's all due to hard work and putting in those work in specific ways and in the right manner as well. I feel it's important to understand one's game and have enough options as well because when you go out in the middle, you need to have enough options, as well as enough knowledge about your game.
That's something I have become better at. One thing which makes me feel really glad is, what I have worked in the practice sessions in the past six-eight months has worked in the middle for me when I played matches.
It's something about which I am very glad as it pushes and motivates me to push even harder in practice sessions.
Q. As an off-spin all-rounder, how much do you value matchups in T20 cricket and how much should one read into it?
A. I think match-ups are something you very well need to be aware of, because there's some stats and records to show; it gives you some sort of information about what has happened in the past.
It's important to give some thought to keep it at the back of your mind. But also, it's very important to understand your own game and execute your skill sets to your own abilities and strengths.
That's something which is more important and information about everything that happened in the past and every such thing is really important. But what has worked for you individually in the past in terms of your strengths and abilities, that's something which has to be at the top before anything else, especially in critical situations I feel.
Q. You have been playing a lot in ODIs and T20Is. So, how do you make adjustments in your game for adapting to different formats?
A. I feel it's the mindset you go with during every practice session. You might play a one-day game a couple of days later and what kind of mindset you go in with before the game and how you prepare yourself before a particular game.
What I feel is the preparation and mindset matters a lot because there's a lot of cricket being played these days. It then becomes very important to switch between formats. But I feel more than anything, it's the mindset and how you choose to prepare yourself before every single game, no matter which format it would be.
So, I believe mindset is something which really matters a lot. Sundar recently got associated with Gillette for its Pro Glide Styler.