New skipper shows he owns No. 4 spot, addresses doubts about abilities in Tests away from homeBIRMINGHAM: On the eve of the Edgbaston Test, the Indian team had an optional training session. Usually, the regulars in the XI take an off a day before a Test, with the captain merely turning up to address the media and have a final look at the pitch.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!Gill, though, decided to go through an extensive routine. A fairly long batting session was followed by endurance drills. Even minutes before the team bus was ready to take the players and support staff back to the hotel, Gill was the solitary person toiling away.
As he tirelessly sprinted up and down the pitch for a couple of runs at 195 on Thursday, it was apparent India’s new captain was reaping the rewards of all the hard work he had put in behind the scenes.Gill arrived in England with doubts over his pedigree as a Test batter, leave alone as captain. Three innings into his captaincy tenure, he has emerged as the undisputed leader of India’s Test batting lineup at the age of 25. On Thursday, he again showcased his insatiable hunger for runs.
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In naming Gill as captain, the selectors took inspiration from how South Africa had appointed Graeme Smith in his early 20s to lead the team in 2003.Incidentally, Smith’s captaincy era also got off to a dream start here in England. Smith scored a double hundred here at Edgbaston before repeating the feat in the next match at Lord’s.By surpassing Sunil Gavaskar’s 221 (scored in 1979) to become India’s highest-scorer in England, Gill has staked his claim to be India’s latest batting royalty. The next Test is at Lord’s. Having already scored a hundred in Leeds, Gill will have his eyes set on going one better than Smith.
Gill’s demeanour at the crease has been reassuring, an advertisement befitting the leader of India’s batting group. It’s not been just about his own runs — Gill has also been working hard to take care of the young batting group. “He’s been amazing. It’s incredible to see him bat as a captain as well. He’s very clear in his head about what he needs to do with the team and we are very confident about what we are going to do,” Yashasvi Jaiswal had said of his captain after the first day’s play. “We’re making sure that whoever is set should take the game as deep as we can. And we usually talk about how we can play session by session. We’re in a very good mindset.”For a boy who has been rigid about opening the innings throughout his career, his best red-ball knocks have come in the middle order. It was in England in 2018, during his U-19 days under the supervision of Rahul Dravid, that Gill was cajoled into batting at No. 3. Abhay Sharma, then an integral part of Dravid’s support staff, had once told TOI, “There are times when you know that everything has clicked for a cricketer. That England tour was one such time when you could see Shubman peaked to a different level.“At that time, there was a lot of discussion around Shubman’s batting position. Prithvi was opening the batting and we had other players who were specialist openers. His game in the ‘V’ is so strong that he could play long and pace an innings. In a match in Brighton, he scored 147 off 120 balls in chilly and windy conditions. We felt like he could score a double hundred. He got out when six overs were left. That innings confirmed his ability to go places,” Abhay recalled. On the evidence of this tour so far, England will always have a special place in Gill’s heart.
