Kolkata minefield: Bavuma stands tall, Washington stands longer

Temba Bavuma played the pivotal innings of the Kolkata Test between India and South Africa, but was he the best batter across the two teams?

It sounds like an absurd question when Bavuma scored the only half-century of a low-scoring dogfight, but we like throwing philosophical debates at our readers, angering some of them in the process.

The answer is, maybe, he quite possibly was, but he quite possibly wasn't, judging by two measures.

On a pitch as treacherous as this one at Eden Gardens, control percentage, with a few caveats, is a good way to separate batters who happened to spend good amounts of time at the crease from batters who demonstrated a method of staying in over a good amount of time.

And on a pitch as treacherous as this one, batters had a trade-off to make between control and run-scoring, and take on certain risks to keep the scoreboard moving, so they weren't just hanging in before the inevitable wicket ball arrived. In-control strike rate, then, gives us an idea of how efficiently these batters created run-scoring opportunities.

By both these measures, Bavuma ranks fairly low among the 11 batters who faced at least 50 balls across both innings - the second-lowest control percentage (76.19), and the fifth-lowest in-control strike rate (37.50).

Now here are the caveats. One, control percentage is a reliable measure over the period of, say, a season or a year, where the batters under comparison have faced a large number of balls from a multitude of bowlers across different conditions, but can be somewhat misleading over a period as short as a Test match.

If a partnership lasts for, say, ten overs, there's a strong chance that one batter was stuck facing the opposition's most threatening bowler while the other was mostly at the other end, facing someone far more straightforward to negotiate. En route to his unbeaten third-innings 55, Bavuma survived one of the most challenging phases of the Test match, a spell from Ravindra Jadeja late on day two where every ball looked like getting a wicket.

And the method Bavuma employed was to play for his inside edge, guarding against the threat of Jadeja's non-turning or less-turning ball rather than the one ripping sharply away from him. This method, in conditions where Jadeja often turned the ball big, meant Bavuma was often beaten on the outside edge, and marked as not being in control while he was happy to be beaten that way.

And every batter brings a different method to the crease, dependent on their strengths and the match circumstances. Bavuma trusted his defence, and his lower-order partners, and did not take undue risks to score his runs. His in-control strike rate, naturally, was on the lower end of the scale.

Having got all that out of the way, let's look at that chart again.

Look at the top left corner. Washington Sundar faced more balls across two innings in Kolkata (174) than anyone on either side, and was the only batter to go past the 50-ball mark twice. And he did this with a control percentage of 88.51.

He did this at No. 3, having walked in inside the first ten overs of both innings, on a pitch where the ball was at its worst behaviour when it was new and hard.

He did this while batting at No. 3 for the first time in his Test career.

India's decision to bat Washington at No. 3, and play all three of their spin-bowling allrounders, was perhaps the biggest selection talking point of this Test match. It was an unusual-looking selection on the face of it, and if you were inclined to, you could have looked at India's XI and judged them to have played only three specialist batters, with the rest of their top eight made up of allrounders and wicketkeepers.

It would be a misleading way of looking at it, though, because all of Washington, Rishabh Pant, Dhruv Jurel, Jadeja and Axar Patel are genuine allrounders, particularly in Indian conditions, if you count wicketkeepers as allrounders. All five are good enough to bat in the top or middle order of a Test-match line-up as specialists.

And on the evidence of his control numbers in Kolkata, Washington can certainly bat at No. 3.

The evidence of the eye suggested this too, as it has done pretty much since the start of his Test career. He has faced criticism for some facets of his batting - notably his ability to bat alongside the tail, until he showed that side of his game with a 46-ball 53 during India's Oval win earlier this year - but everyone from lay observer to coaches and team-mates has noted how organised his technique is, and how unruffled he looks at the crease.

Whether it's batting in a first-innings crisis followed by a pulsating run chase on debut at the Gabba in 2021, or batting for close to five hours to save a Test match at Old Trafford in 2025, he has always batted in this impervious bubble, staring placidly into the middle distance between balls, giving away nothing of what goes on in his head.

Washington was just as unhurried and unbothered at Eden Gardens, wrapped up in his own universe and his own rhythms. And when he faced South Africa's bowlers, he had a method for everyone, including Simon Harmer, by far their biggest threat - especially to India's unusually long list of left-hand batters.

Of the four in India's top eight who faced Harmer, Washington was the only one with an 80-plus control percentage, while facing the most balls of all of them (40) from the offspinner. Washington's use of his height and especially his reach, with bat often stretched out a long way in front of pad, to get close to the pitch of the ball was a lesson for any batter blessed with those physical attributes.

For all this, though, Washington scored at a glacial pace, his 60 runs in the match coming at a strike rate of 34.48, and an in-control strike rate (i.e., not counting edges) of 29.87. Of the 11 batters who faced at least 50 balls in the match, only Tristan Stubbs (21.79) ranked below Washington on the latter measure.

You could criticise Washington for his approach - and you may have wondered, when you saw him launch that effortless, inside-out six off Keshav Maharaj, why he doesn't trust himself to play his shots more often - but it suited his role far more than Stubbs' did. Stubbs, batting at No. 6, ran out of partners in South Africa's first innings, finishing on 15 not out off 74 balls, and his strokelessness was both a shock - if you hadn't followed his batting during South Africa's recent Tests in Pakistan - and a reminder of the vast difference between scoring quickly in T20s and scoring quickly against quality Test spinners in challenging conditions.

At No. 3, Washington was doing the job India had probably assigned him - of minimising wicket losses when the ball was still hard, in conditions where turn and uneven bounce became easier to negotiate when the ball was older and softer. Washington spent 57 overs at the crease across the two India innings, or close to 60% of the 97.2 overs they lasted in total.

He did a job not unlike the one India's last long-time No. 3, Cheteshwar Pujara, performed day in and day out.

Picking Washington above his Tamil Nadu team-mate B Sai Sudharsan, then, seemed entirely justified. Sai Sudharsan, so far in his Test career, has looked a similar sort of player to Washington - tall, left-handed, usually achieving impressive control numbers even when he doesn't make big scores. India may have felt, however, that his unusual method against spin, which is heavily weighted towards back-foot play, could have come under severe strain on this Kolkata pitch, and preferred Washington to him for that reason.

Or, more simply, they may have felt there was little to separate Washington and Sai Sudharsan as batters, but only one of them also happened to be a quality offspinner.

Given the high value Washington offers with his secondary skill - or is it still his primary skill? - it was surprising that India only used him for one over across both of South Africa innings. Right-hand batters dominated South Africa's line-up, yes, but it still felt like India severely underbowled an offspinner who could have been very useful given the bounce he generates, and especially the drift that allows him to test both edges of the bat. Harmer certainly troubled India's right-handers too - he dismissed one of them, Dhruv Jurel, twice - particularly from around the wicket.

With Axar often looking unable to test the right-handers' outside edge, it felt like only job descriptions - left-arm orthodox vs offspin, No. 8 vs No. 3 in this match - had led India to use him 20 times as much as they did Washington.

This can often become an issue when a team has a surfeit of bowling options - and India had as many as six, all of them legitimate bowlers in Indian conditions. There's no easy way to ensure that you don't underbowl one or two of them, because there's a delicate balance at play. If you give all your options enough of a go to get an idea of who the best option is in a given innings, you run the risk of not bowling any of them long enough to get into rhythm. Spinners in particular thrive when they bowl long spells.

Going forward, it's an issue India will have to learn to manage if they continue to bat Washington at No. 3. Will they be making the best use of his bowling? And will the increased batting responsibility mean more time spent batting in the nets, and less time bowling?

Against these pitfalls India will weigh the flexibility Washington offers them if he regularly bats in the top order, allowing them to play an extra seamer, spinner or batter depending on the conditions. It's a role he certainly has the game for. Whether or not it's the best role for his development as an allrounder, it may just be the role that best serves India's needs.