The Gabba Test 2021: Washington Sundar batted with ill-fitted pads after Australia reportedly refused to help

Talented young all-rounder Washington Sundar travelled to Australia as a net bowler in the 2020-21 season and there was no remote chance of him playing in the four-match Test series. However, since many of the Indian players suffered multiple injuries throughout the course of the series, Sundar was added in the squad to make his debut in the fourth and final Test at The Gabba.

Now, since he was initially called up as a net bowler, the 23-year-old didn’t carry his batting pads and that landed him in a bit of trouble. Due to the COVID-19 lockdown in Australia at that time, the cricketer couldn’t go out and buy one and thus, a senior member of team India support staff went running around to arrange pads for the cricketer. 

Now, in such desperate times, a message was reportedly sent across to the Australian camp, requesting whether can they arrange white pads for Washington or not. Now, as per a journalist named K Shriniwas Rao a special request was made to a left-handed tailender batter of the Australia team but the cricketer refused to help the Indian all-rounder.

An SOS was sent across to the Australian camp and a request was made to an Australian tailender batsman -- a lefthander -- if he could lend a pair of white pads.

What do you think was the reply? 🙂

The request was flatly denied. Nope, nobody was going to oblige Washy.

+

— KSR (@KShriniwasRao) February 8, 2023

Later, the Tamil Nadu-born cricketer was seen batting with ill-fitted pads that the team management arranged for him after the match got started. R Sridhar, India’s fielding coach at that time revealed the story after the Test match and stated the difficulties they faced during that phase.

“We tried many but they were too small for the tall Sundar (Washington Sundar). We tried getting from the Aussies but due to Covid, they could not spare their pads. Finally, we had to go to a shop after the Test match had started,” said Sridhar to Telangana Today.

However, despite playing with ill-fitted pads Washington managed to score 62 crucial runs for India in the first innings and scored 22 runs off 29 balls in the second innings. He also picked up four wickets with the ball and courtesy of this valuable contribution throughout the match, team India managed to beat Australia by three wickets and eventually won the historic Test series.

Since then, he has played three more Test matches for India but hasn’t found much success. Meanwhile, the next edition of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy is all set to begin at Nagpur on February 9.

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