After winning the T20 World Cup 2026, the Indian team is currently on a break but in a few days all the players will return to the field because the new season of IPL is about to start. The 19th season of the world’s biggest league is starting from March 28 and its initial schedule has also been released. But while most of the players from Team India’s World Champion squad will be a part of their respective team’s playing-11, there is one player for whom it will be very difficult to make a place in the starting 11 and in such a situation, he is not likely to get much opportunities.
We are talking about spin all-rounder Washington Sundar. Sundar, a right-handed off-break bowler and left-handed batsman who was part of the Indian team participating in the World Cup, will also be a part of Gujarat Titans in the upcoming IPL season. Sundar was associated with this franchise only last season, when Gujarat bought him for Rs 3.2 crore. However, despite playing continuously for Team India and being a part of the World Cup team squad, Sundar has not been able to cement his place in the playing-11 in franchise cricket.
Even in the World Cup, Sundar got a chance to play only 2 matches and he could not do anything amazing in both. There is no direct connection with IPL as to how many chances each player got in the World Cup because star spinner Kuldeep Yadav was also given only one match. But when IPL starts, he will be the most important part of the playing-11 of Delhi Capitals. But this is not the case with Washington Sundar and the reason for this is not his playing less matches in the World Cup, but the combination of playing-11, in which Sundar does not fit and this was seen in the last season also.
In IPL 2025, Sundar played only 5 matches for Gujarat, in which he took 2 wickets and could score only 133 runs. This time also the situation is expected to remain similar because Gujarat’s squad has names like Sai Kishore and Rashid Khan as spin all-rounders, who are important in the team’s playing-11. Even Sai Kishore had played full 15 matches last season and was one of the most successful bowlers of the team.
But this is not the first time that Sundar will have to struggle like this again to make a place in the playing-11. Since making his debut in IPL 2017, he has played 9 consecutive seasons but in these 9 years he has been able to play only 66 matches. In this too, there was only one season of 2020, when he played a maximum of 15 matches. Apart from this, he played 11 matches in the first season of 2017. Apart from these 2 seasons, Sundar has not been able to touch the figure of 10 even once. Now whether the luck will change this time, it will be worth seeing.