The match-winning fifty in Ranchi was all the sweeter for the struggles he’s come through in this series
Karthik Krishnaswamy26-Feb-20241:26
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There was the hug (wait for 2:10). The happiest, back-slappiest hug you may have seen on a cricket field. There was this Instagram post. There were all the visual echoes. India’s No. 3, tall, slim, batting in a cap, completing an epic come-from-behind Test win with an unbeaten fourth-innings half-century.This was Ranchi 2024, but it may have got you thinking about Adelaide 2003.Shubman Gill came into this series with all the promise in the world and an average of 30.58 after 20 Tests. He had asked for, and been given, a chance to move from the top of the order down to No. 3: Rahul Dravid’s position, Cheteshwar Pujara’s position. With India losing a number of experienced batters for injury and other reasons, he was soon to become a senior member of one of their least experienced line-ups.Here’s how Gill’s series has gone: 23, 0, 34, 104, 0, 91, 38, 52*. That’s 342 runs at 48.85, the second-most runs by anyone on either side, and the second-best average of anyone who’s played at least two Tests.He’s not batted like he’s from another planet, like Yashasvi Jaiswal has. He’s not even batted like the Shubman Gill the world has known and marvelled at whenever he’s scored runs before. He’s looked vulnerable early on, particularly against England’s quicks. He’s gone through periods of struggling to rotate strike against the spinners. He’s gotten out to attacking shots that he seemed not to really commit to.He’s among the world’s most fluent strokemakers when he gets going, but he’s seldom got into that kind of rhythm. He’s run into problems, worked on them, scored runs, and run into other problems to address. It’s not been the kind of series where one innings has unlocked his free-flowing self.A tall, slim India No. 3 batting with a cap and scoring a fourth-innings fifty. Haven’t we seen that before?•AFP/Getty ImagesHe scored a second-innings hundred in Visakhapatnam, for instance, and followed it up with his most uncertain-looking innings of the series. This was on day one in Rajkot, where he jabbed feverishly at everything with his back foot seemingly stuck on leg stump, and eventually nicked off to Mark Wood for a duck. Then, on the morning of day two, when India were still batting, he went to the nets and faced a long session of throwdowns.It’s not clear what he worked on, but it may have been something to do with his trigger movement against pace, because he got into line so much more quickly and assuredly in the second innings – the conditions were, it has to be said, less helpful to the quicks by this stage – and seemed to put all his jabbiness behind him while scoring 91.Related
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In the first innings in Ranchi, he made 38 before Shoaib Bashir got him lbw while defending off the front foot. Gill got a good stride forward to the ball but was struck on the front pad just about in line with off stump.In the second, he resolved to take lbw out of the equation. He did this by doing something that comes naturally to him, but did that thing differently.”In the first innings, the ball was not turning much, so I didn’t step out much, and the ball which I got out [to], it hit the crack and spun sharply,” Gill told the host broadcaster at the end of the match. “In the second innings, I just thought I would take lbw out of the game by just stepping out.”It’s one of those things I’ve practiced a lot, step out and play for the singles or defend, because generally when you’re stepping out you’re always looking for the big shot, but I think if you can step out and you have this game where you can step out and defend or look for the single I think it really helps on wickets like these.”Step out and play for the singles or defend. Who does that sound like?3:30
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India have moved beyond him and embraced a group of exciting, young batters, but if there was any pitch in this series where they would have wished for Pujara’s presence, it was this one. With the ball keeping low as often as it did here, the ability to dance down to the pitch of the ball was worth so much more.India didn’t have Pujara during their chase of 192, but they had a No. 3 who batted like him. According to ESPNcricinfo’s data, Gill stepped out of his crease 31 times on Monday, more often than he has done in any previous Test innings. He faced 50 balls from Bashir and stepped out 27 times.And it was only off the 120th ball he faced that Gill hit his first boundary, a sashaying straight six off Bashir. By this time, India needed just 20 more. Gill had come in at 84 for 1 and seen that become 120 for 5 in the span of 65 balls. By the time he hit that six, he and Dhruv Jurel had taken them to 172 for 5.He would hit one more six, but that would be the extent of his boundary count.”This would probably go down as my only innings where I didn’t hit a boundary, like a four, after scoring a fifty,” Gill said. “But you have to see the situation and you have to play the situation sometimes, and I think the way their bowlers were bowling, they were bowling really good lines, and they had also been protecting their boundaries pretty well, so it was important for us to just keep playing the game and not let the bowlers bowl too many maidens, because then on a wicket like this you are waiting for a magical ball to happen to you, so that was the plan. Keep taking the singles, and as soon as they gave us anything loose, try to pounce on that.”There was nothing particularly loose on a surface that severely restricted scoring options square of the wicket, but Gill stayed within his self-imposed limits until the match was almost won.This was a Shubman Gill innings, but it could have been a Pujara innings or a Dravid innings.Gill attributed these words to Dravid in that aforementioned Instagram post. “If not you, then who? If not now, then when?”There’s a mundane answer to that second question: If not now, then some other time, soon enough. Gill has so much ability, and works so hard on his game, that he would have gone on a run of consistent Test scores sooner rather than later. But it’s happened now, in this thrillingly hard-fought series, and it has happened in this manner. He hasn’t timed every ball like a dream, like we all know he can. He has struggled, instead, and endured, and the struggle has made it even sweeter to watch.