India captain Shubman Gill has started his England Test series exceptionally well. Shubman Gill has hit 3 hundreds in his first two matches, playing a crucial role in India levelling the series in the 2nd Test at Edgbaston.
With already 585 runs in the bag, Shubman Gill is extremely well placed to create history in Test cricket by going past the tallies of the legendary Sunil Gavaskar and Don Bradman. Gavaskar holds the record for most runs by an Indian batter in any Test series. Gavaskar scored 774 runs in 4 matches in India’s historic Test outing in West Indies way back in 1970/71. Gavaskar batted at an average of 154.80 in that series.
Similarly, the list of most runs by a batter in a single Test series is led by Don Bradman, who slammed 974 runs in 5 matches when Australia travelled to England in 1930. Bradman batted at a ridiculous average of 139.14, which also included his legendary 334, an iconic mark in Australian cricket.
Former India captain Sourav Ganguly was left awestruck by Shubman Gill’s “flawless” knocks in Edgbaston that set up a record win against England by 336 runs. Not only was it India’s first-ever win at the venue in 19 attempts in history, but it was also their biggest win on overseas soil.
Sourav Ganguly was in all praise for Shubman Gill’s batting exploits vs England in 2nd Test
Just two Tests of the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy are done, and three more to go, while Shubman Gill is already sitting on a pile of runs. The Indian Test captain has amassed close to 600 runs in four innings, averaging 146.25. After getting a century in Leeds, Shubman Gill hammered 269 in the first innings of the second Test and followed it up with a 161-ball 162 in the second. His heroics, along with Akash Deep’s 10-wicket haul, helped India clinch a series-levelling 336-run win – their first-ever at Edgbaston 19 attempts.
Captain Gill’s outstanding knocks in England have been garnering praise from the legends of the game. The latest one to join the bandwagon is former India captain Sourav Ganguly. Speaking to Revsportz, Ganguly called it the best batting performance he has ever seen on English soil in the last three decades.
“Shubman is batting like a dream,” said Ganguly.
“See my tweet and you will know. In my three decades of playing and watching cricket in the UK, this is one of the best exhibitions of batting that I have seen. He is simply flawless. There are no chinks in his armour and the English bowlers don’t look like getting him out,” he added.
“Gill isn’t making a single mistake. He was always pleasing to the eye. And now he is showing the hunger and the temperament. If you see him now, you will be left wondering how can he have an average of less than 50 in Test cricket,” Ganguly further stated.
Shubman Gill is currently the top-scorer of the series with 585 runs in just two matches. He is just 18 runs short of becoming the most prolific Indian batter on an England tour in a single series, eyeing to shatter former captain Rahul Dravid’s long-standing record of 602 runs – in the tour of 2002. Sourav Ganguly further highlighted that Shubman Gill did not stop at the century mark and kept at it, making it the most significant aspect of his batting.
“The best thing about Shubman in this series is the determination to go big. “If you see, in every innings, he has gone big. A hundred isn’t really enough. He wants to get the double hundred, and that’s something fantastic to see,” the former captain said.
With the series now levelled 1-1, India and England will shift bases to London to play the third Test of the series at the home of cricket – Lord’s. The match will begin on Thursday, July 10.
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