In the first innings of the second Test match against England, Team India skipper Shubman Gill played a knock of 269 runs off 387 deliveries, which included 30 boundaries and three maximums.
Speaking about his stunning double-century, Gill said, “I think at the end of the IPL and before this series, I worked a lot on this. 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”.
The knock also helped him become the first Indian and Asian captain to score a double century in a Test match in England. Riding on his knock, Team India posted a total of 587 runs in 151 overs.
Further, he also stated that he sticked to his game`s basics like he used to do in his childhood.
“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,” added the 25-year-old.
With this knock of 269-run knock, the right-hander has surpassed Sunil Gavaskar`s score of 221 runs at The Oval in 1979 to post the highest individual score by an Indian batter on English soil.
Gill`s return to form comes after a lukewarm Test tour of Australia earlier this year, where he managed a highest score of just 31 across three Tests.
He also said that he was lost in trying to focus too much on accumulating runs.
“Sometimes, when you aren`t scoring runs fluently, you stop enjoying your batting. You focus too much on the need to score runs. I felt I had lost that in my batting. I was so focused that I wasn`t enjoying my batting as much.”
Gill`s knock is also the highest by an Indian captain in Tests, surpassing Virat Kohli`s unbeaten 254 against South Africa in Pune in 2019.
(With PTI Inputs)
