Gill roars with 161, records tumble; joins elite club with twin 150+ Test blasts

Birmingham: Shubman Gill’s insatiable appetite for runs resulted in a second hundred of the game as India set an impossible 608-run target, throwing down the gauntlet to England’s Bazballers who were staring down the barrel going into Day 5 of the second Test here.

Gill (161 off 162 balls) turned himself into a virtual ‘Run Machine’, smashing his third hundred in four innings following his epic 269 in the first essay.

The other contributions in the second innings came from Ravindra Jadeja (69 not out), Rishabh Pant (65) and KL Rahul (55) as India declared their second innings at 427/6.

The Indian pacers once again got the new ball to talk with Akash Deep accounting for the dangerous Ben Duckett and the dependable Joe Root while and Mohammed Siraj had Zak Crawley caught at backward point with a full outswinger, reducing the hosts to 72/3 in 16 overs at stumps on Day 4. The timing of India’s declaration, that came one hour after tea, was questioned by the experts and fans alike with the likes of Cheteshwar Pujara saying on air that India should have declared at least half hour earlier. The England fans in the fabled Hollies stand chanted ‘boring boring’ when declaration was not announced despite Gill’s dismissal. The booing followed soon after.

Gill, who got to three figures at the stroke of tea, stepped up his offensive against the spin duo of Shoaib Bashir and part timer Joe Root, employing the sweep to deep square and mid-wicket fence regularly.

His innings included13 fours and eight sixes and took his match tally of runs to 430, surpassing the great Sunil Gavaskar’s record (344 against West Indies at Port of Spain in 1971) for most runs by an Indian. He also became the second Indian after Gavaskar to get a 200 and 100 in the same Test.

The wickets have been flat and produced mountain of runs but India have already aggregated seven hundreds on the tour, unprecedented in an away series. It would be interesting to see what approach England adopts though their philosophy in the Ben Stokes-Brendon McCullum is driven by results and not draws. The only draw in the Bazball era, the Old Trafford game in Ashes 2023, was caused by rain.