With 754 runs in the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy, Indian captain Shubman Gill broke a number of the records for a five-Test match series. The 25-year-old’s tally of 754 runs is the second highest by a Test captain in a series only behind Don Bradman’s tally of 810 runs as Australian captain in The Ashes in 1936-1937. Prior to the England series, Gill did not have a single Test hundred in SENA (South Africa, England, New Zealand and Australia) countries with him yet to play in New Zealand. Former Indian wicket-keeper Parthiv Patel has shown praise on Gill’s batting and termed his Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy heroics as something that will answer the earlier question about his away form.
“Four centuries, an average of 75.40, and more than 750 runs — all scored across different conditions. Earlier, when he walked out to bat, there were questions: Will he be able to perform in the SENA countries? Can he deliver consistently? But look at the answers he has given,” Patel told the show Follow the Blues on JioHotstar.
Gill scored his first hundred of the series at Leeds and followed that with a double hundred and hundred in the second Test at Edgbaston. His knocks of 268 and 161 at Edgbaston meant that his tally of 430 runs was the second-highest aggregate in a Test behind England batsman Graham Gooch’s aggregate of 456 runs against India in 1990. It was also the highest run-aggregate by an away batsman in a Test match. Gill also became the first batsman from Asia to score 700 or more runs in a Test series played in SENA countries. Patel termed his consistently as the perfect answer to the questions about his form being raised in between the series. “147 runs in the first innings at Headingley. In the second innings, people said he threw his wicket away. Then came 269 runs in the first innings at Edgbaston. Again, the talk was that it might prove to be less, but he followed it up with 161 in the second innings. In the third Test, he got out early in both innings, and questions about his form began again, even though he had already scored 430 runs in the previous match. And then came that hundred in Manchester, in a match India needed to draw. Whenever there’s been a challenge, whenever questions have been asked, Gill has answered them perfectly with his bat,” Patel added.
Earlier former Indian batting coach Sanjay Bangar too had lauded Gill’s heroics as well his captaincy in the series, which was drawn by India 2-2. “I think this was also the first instance when he was getting a full series in England and that helps as a batter. If you have a great start at Headingley itself, then it sort of quite down all the nerves. Because India started so well, the number of batsmen who got runs in the very first Test match is extremely critical. Because you know scoring runs in England is very very valuable and if it comes right at the start of the series with 2 or 3 batsmen getting big scores means that the series is getting beautifully build up and that’s where Shubman getting those big knocks in the first four innings of the series itself meant that entire questions marks about his captaincy affecting his batsmanship just vapourised out of thin air and he also became far far confident as a leader,” Bangar had told ESPNCricinfo.
