Gill is only the fifth Indian to have scored a double century as Test captain. (AP Photo)Shubman Gill is batting in his own world as he followed up a century in his first innings as India’s Test captain in Leeds with a double century in the second match at Edgbaston. The 25-year-old got to the mark in 311 balls, his innings punctuated by 21 fours and two sixes.
Gill has broken a plethora of records on the way – he is the first Asian captain to have scored a double century in a Test match in England. Naturally, Gill has also set a new record for highest score by an Indian captain in a Test innings in England, going past the 179 scored by Mohammad Azharuddin in 1990.
Gill went on to hit a hat-trick of fours in the 125th over and that took him to 222 in 323 balls, the highest score by an Indian in a Test match played in England. He went past Sunil Gavaskar’s 221 at The Oval in 1979.
Shubman Gill becomes the 26th Indian cricketer to hit a Test double hundred. 12 Indian cricketers have one double century each and Gill becomes the 13th player to join that list. Overall, this is the 50th instance of an Indian scoring a double century in Test cricket. Virat Kohli holds the record for most double hundreds by an Indian batsman with seven double hundreds.
Gill is only the fifth Indian to have scored a double century as Test captain after Kohli, Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni, Sunil Gavaskar and Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi. Gill is also now the fourth Indian to have double centuries in Tests and ODIs after his predecessor as captain Rohit Sharma, Sachin Tendulkar and Virender Sehwag.
His knock on Day 1 of the Test was the statistically the most secure ever scored on English shores, since such records have been kept. According to CricViz, Gill’s false shot percentage during Wednesday’s knock was just 3.5 percent. The average in England is 12 percent. The BBC said this statistic made it the most controlled hundred in England since 2006, when such numbers began being collated. It contained just two outside edges off Chris Woakes – both before Gill had reached 20. There was an inside edge off Brydon Carse that helped Gill survive an LBW appeal. England took a review, but burnt it.
Any edge, play-and-miss or mishit is considered a false shot, and there were three more of these from Gill – one off Woakes and two off Gill’s counterpart Ben Stokes. Rahul Dravid, Ricky Ponting and Kumar Sangakkara, all of whom have scored memorable hundreds in England, didn’t exhibit this level of control. Neither did home team stalwarts such as Alastair Cook, Kevin Pietersen and Joe Root.
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