At close of play on Day 2 of the Ranji Trophy game between Punjab and Karnataka, in Bengaluru, the side from the North Zone was hurtling fast to an embarrassing defeat. Punjab, who were already 420 runs in arrears after the completion of Karnataka’s first innings, looked shaky in the second dig too. With just about an hour left for close of play, Shubman Gill and Prabhsimran Singh, the two openers, had nothing to gain. It was all about survival. Unfortunately, Punjab lost two wickets during that testing one hour.
Despite watching a procession of wickets at the other end, Gill stood firm. He did have a few nervy moments against V Koushik, Abhilash Shetty and Prasidh Krishna, but showed the required temperament to paddle through that tricky phase. A familiar narrative continued on the final day of the first-class game – wickets kept tumbling and Punjab were six down at the lunch Interval. The other constant was Gill holding fort, still unbeaten on 49.
It is true that Gill was beaten on the edge by the pace trio. Prasidh also attempted a few short deliveries that were head high. However, Gill seemed to be in no mood to throw his wicket away. It felt as if he had kept one of his favourite shots – the pull – safely inside the locker, especially while facing Prasidh. The hallmark of his batting in the first session of Day 3 was to break it down to the old maxim of playing each ball on its merit. And not to worry about the previous outcome.
In the second session, Gill shifted gears as he played a flurry of lofts, drives, pulls and an improvised cross-batted shot that went sailing over Prasidh’s head. The stroke also was a signal to his India teammate that he had won this intriguing battle.
It was a contest where Gill exhibited his improved batting nous. Prasidh was basically the only bowler for whom Gill had decided to predominantly play with a back-and-across trigger. The idea probably was to negate his threat of extracting bounce from a slightly fuller length. This salient feature of his batting also provided an insight about Gill having the mental aptitude to chalk out different plans for different bowlers. By around 1.20 pm, with the stadium bathed in radiant sunshine, Gill had reached 96. Maybe, it was the nervous 90s as Gill took a while to complete the three-figure mark.
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With Mayank Markande looking quite confident at the other end, he was perhaps in no hurry to get to the landmark either. Eventually, with a nurdle behind square on the on-side off Abhilash, he got to his century. Immediately, there was a generous round of applause from the 100-odd fans that had gathered to watch the game. Unfortunately, Gill was soon wrongly given out LBW. A frustrated Gill threw his bat in the air. That was the only real blemish in his innings.
Despite Gill’s hundred, question marks remain over his pedigree in Test cricket, especially in countries like South Africa, England, New Zealand and Australia. Maybe, he doesn’t always load up his back foot/back toe early enough and as a result his front foot is kind of planted. He has worked on his flaw, but it feels as if he is grappling a touch to juggle between the longest format and the shortest version of the game, with those two formats demanding relatively different skill sets.
“Sometimes, I think with the red ball, in the matches that I play, I tend to get a very good 25-30 and, in those moments, I sometimes tend to put too much pressure on myself to be able to convert those,” Gill told reporters. “That is not the way that I have grown up playing my game.
“There is a certain zone that I am in, certain intent that I am in and sometimes I think I lose that because I put too much pressure on myself that I have to get a big run now that I am set. I think in those crucial moments, I sometimes lose my focus and concentration.”
His hundred in the just concluded Ranji Trophy may not silence his detractors. But certain facets of his game gave an inkling that he is on the right path. On the flip side, he has already partaken in 32 Tests. By this time, he should have cemented his place as one of the mainstays of the Indian Test line-up.
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