Gargi Raut at Old Trafford
At the end of Day 3, at the Lord’s cricket stadium, there was a shift in the series. Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett were walking out to face the new ball but the Indian team was running out of patience. The England openers were trying to run down the clock and the Indian captain wasn’t having any of that. With seven minutes available, Crawley and Duckett employed time-wasting tactics and made sure India could only bowl one over in the final few minutes of play.
The Indian team, especially skipper Gill did not hold back in expressing his disappointment. He dropped the F*** bomb to Crawley, with the entire conversation getting caught on the stump mic. And that moment marked a shift in the series. What was a spectacle of a conventional Test for 3 days at the Home of Cricket, suddenly turned into a fast-paced, high intensity game. Even though India showed some gritty fightback, they eventually went on to lose the game.
Gill, later in a press conference before the fourth Test, was asked of the incident again. And he said that the England openers were a full 90 minutes late to come out to bat. Not only that, he also accused the England team of not playing within the ‘spirit of cricket’, a statement that did not go down well with the English crowd.
On day one of the fourth Test, at the Old Trafford, after losing KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal, the captain walked into bat. Gill was welcomed with a range of boos and when he soon lost his wicket to a delivery by Ben Stokes, one that exploited the inswinging weakness of Gill, he received a fiery sendoff by the England captain.
England had been able to exploit this weakness of Gill time and again. But Gill, who once looked flawless, is now on a downward slope in the series. Did something change at Lord’s on day 3? Is the Indian skipper still thinking about the spat and rueing the fact that India could not clinch the win? Gill doesn’t hesitate from taking accountability, even if for a loss, but has the entire incident taken up more space in the Indian captain’s mind than it deserves? Is he going out with the intention of trying to prove a point every time he goes out to bat?
Day 1 at the Old Trafford came to an unfortunate end as Rishabh Pant was wheeled off the field in an ambulance after chopping a nasty blow to his right metatarsal. One that left his foot bloodied and swollen beyond imagination. Pant tried to walk off the field, pacing back and forth to relieve the pain, hoping it gets better but as the physio removed his shoes, reality hit. The injury was worse than most had expected and the grimace and agony on the field proved it wasn’t just another blow.
For Shubman Gill, the road becomes trickier. Without his deputy and one of the best batters of the series, the road ahead is as mental as technical. The weight of expectations will only get heavier while the scrutiny gets sharper. And the skipper can’t let emotions blur his focus, not after what happened on day 1. Gill’s talent is undeniable, his past performances proof of his calibre. But he needs to rise above the noise and let the bat do the talking.
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