Team India skipper Shubman Gill played an unbeaten knock of 114 runs off 216 deliveries, including 12 boundaries in the first innings of the second Test match against England,
With his latest score, the right-hander has smashed his second ton of the ongoing England tour. After registering his second century, Gill stated that the Indian team is here not only to win the match, but also the series.
Speaking in a video posted by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), the skipper was seen saying, “We definitely want to win this Test match and the series”.
Gill, India`s youngest Test captain, swept Root behind square to find the boundary rope for a four and then walloped the ball to close out a memorable hundred in Birmingham. He also became the fourth Indian skipper to score centuries in his first two matches as captain after Virat Kohli, Vijay Hazare and Sunil Gavaskar.
The 25-year-old also joined batting wizards Dilip Vengsarkar, Rahul Dravid and Mohammad Azharuddin to score hundreds in three consecutive Tests for India against England. He got to the three-digit figures with a control of 96.5 per cent, cementing his supremacy in Birmingham.
With India reduced to 95/2, Gill forged a resilient 66-run stand for the third wicket with young swashbuckler Yashasvi Jaiswal.
After losing KL Rahul and Karun Nair, Gill and Jaiswal were more watchful, with the Indian skipper surviving a close call for leg-before-wicket against Chris Woakes. Gill soon took the pressure off his shoulders with two boundaries against the bowler in the 33rd over.
Gill showed glimpses of his scorching form in the first innings of the series opener. He continued piling up runs brick by brick and repaid the trust of the management by slamming his maiden Test century outside Asia in 140 balls, with 14 fours.
With a stellar performance like this, he has followed the footsteps of legendary names like Hazare who did it in 1951, after Gavaskar in 1976, and Kohli in 2014, becoming the fourth Indian to reach triple figures in the first innings as Test captain. Interestingly, he also touched the 2,000 run Test mark during his debut as Test captain, similar to the way that Kohli had done at Adelaide 11 years ago in Australia.
(With ANI Inputs)
