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In an innings that defined him as a separate class of players, adept in all the three formats of the game, Indian Test captain Shubman Gill proved that it was not about milestones - it was about taking the team about from a slumber in an under-pressure condition. If Gill’s first hundred at Leeds in the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy announced his arrival as India’s test captain, this one felt like a retaliation to its rigours and stresses. His century kept the Indian batting lineup from unraveling. But the statistical spectacles got the attention as Shubman Gill followed up his knock of 147 at Headingley with a masterclass 114 not out on Day 1 at Edgbaston, with India at a score of 310/5 at stumps.
Along with the fact of scripting history, Shubman Gill has now joined an elite club of players including legendary players like Sir Donald Bradman, Sir Garfield Sobers, Greame Smith among others. Gill has got himself etched in the list of visiting captains in England to have scored centuries in the first two tests of a series. He became the ninth visiting captain to achieve such a feat. If his knock of 110 in the first innings of India Vs England Dharamshala test of last year is also counted then Gill is also the fourth Indian to hit three consecutive centuries Test tons against England, after Dilip Vengsarkar, Mohammad Azharuddin and Rahul Dravid.
New records for Shubman Gill in SENA Tests
Gill’s flamboyant century has made him find a place among Indian captains who scored in triple figures in consecutive tests against England - after Vijay Hazare and Azharuddin - and reached the 2,000-run milestone in Tests in his captaincy debut, just like Kohli did in Adelaide in 2014. With his century still in progress, the second day of the test will demand from him as much the first day did as he has two all-rounders to bat with him.
After coming in when the team was at 95/2, he absorbed the pressure, when he stitched a 66-run stand with Yashasvi Jaiswal and then an unbeaten 99-run partnership with Ravindra Jadeja, bringing out India from a collapse that has left it only at 211/5.
