India captain Shubman Gill continued his sublime form in the ongoing Test series against England when he brought up his 7th Test century on Day 4 of the second Test at Edgbaston. This was after the 25-year-old scored a belligerent 269 in India’s first innings which helped his team post a massive total.
On Saturday, Gill brought up his ton in 129 deliveries in an innings peppered with 9 fours and 3 maximums as India looked to post another huge score.
On Day 2 on Thursday, Gill became the first Indian and Asian captain to score a double hundred in a Test match in England. The skipper also posted the highest individual score by an Indian batter on English soil, surpassing Sunil Gavaskar’s 221 scored at the Oval back in 1979. The previous best was 193 by Sri Lanka’s Tillakaratne Dilshan at Lord’s in 2011.
Gill, who scored 147 on his debut as Test captain at Leeds, completed his maiden double hundred in the traditional format when he pulled Josh Tongue towards deep fine leg for a single.
He took 311 deliveries to reach his double hundred which earned him a place alongside MAK Pataudi, Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar and MS Dhoni as captains with double hundreds for India. Virat Kohli holds the record with seven double centuries as skipper for India.
Before Gill, the highest score by an Indian skipper in a SENA country was 192 by Mohammed Azharuddin against New Zealand in Auckland back in 1990. Azharuddin’s 179 in Manchester in 1990 was the highest score by an Indian skipper in England.
En route his double ton, Gill smashed 21 fours and two sixes and became the third Indian batter to score a double ton in Old Blighty after legendary pair of Sunil Gavaskar and Rahul Dravid.
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“I mainly worked on my initial movement and my setup. Before this, I felt my batting was going well. I was scoring 30-35-40 runs consistently in Test matches. But at some point, I was missing that peak concentration time. A lot of people say that when you focus too much, you sometimes miss your peak time. So, in this series, I tried to go back to my basics. I tried to bat like I used to in my childhood. I didn’t think about having reached 35-40 runs or about playing long innings. I just wanted to enjoy my batting,” he had said.
(With agency inputs)
