Shubman Gill draws alongside Sir Donald Bradman with fourth century of IND vs ENG series

Shubman Gill draws alongside Sir Donald Bradman with fourth century of IND vs ENG series (BCCI Photo)

Even as the scrutiny grows over India’s questionable team selections and Shubman Gill’s captaincy, his bat continues to shatter records. Early on Day 5 in the Old Trafford Test, Gill joined some of the game’s all-time greats by bringing up his 700th run of the series. In nearly a century and a half of Test cricket, only seven visiting batsmen had accomplished the feat – Sir Donald Bradman did it twice.

What’s more, Gill didn’t stop there. His century, off 228 balls – his slowest of the series – took him alongside Bradman as the only overseas batsmen to score four hundreds in a series in England. When you consider the star cast with three hundreds to their name, it puts Gill’s achievement into perspective.

A clip off the pads for two off Ben Stokes, his captaincy counterpart, took Gill to 700. Only the great Sunil Gavaskar, with 774 runs in his debut series in the Caribbean in 1974, has scored more for India away from home.

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Gill started the series with a sparkling 147 at Headingley, before smashing 430 runs across two innings in the Indian win at Edgbaston. His twin failures at Lord’s played a big part in the team’s narrow defeat, but after another cheap dismissal in the first innings in Manchester, he was back to his commanding best as India scrapped to try and save the Test.

Gill had never previously batted more than 243 minutes in the second innings of a Test, and his Old Trafford vigil has now already gone past five hours. Ollie Pope dropped a tough chance at cover when he was on 81, but he was otherwise both circumspect and purposeful as the second-wicket partnership with KL Rahul mounted.

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But the dismissal of Rahul, to one that kept low, and a nasty blow to the glove and helmet from a Stokes delivery that reared like an angry cobra, seemed to disturb Gill’s focus. After a testing phase against Stokes and Liam Dawson’s off-spin, Gill played a stunning pull off Jofra Archer, armed up with the new ball, to move to 96. Not long after, a single into the covers took him to his fourth century of the series, and Bradman territory.

India still face a huge task to save this game and series, but there has been no shortage of effort from the captain, who has batted like a warrior yet again.