Former Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly applauded Shubman Gill's knock at Edgbaston as he broke several records and made a few new ones on the way to 269 runs off 387 deliveries.
His knock helped India post a mammoth score of 587 runs and then the Indian bowlers backed up his decision by taking three quick wickets. Akash Deep replacing Jasprit Bumrah picked up two wickets off two balls and Mohammed Siraj removed Zak Crawley.
England are still trailing by 510 runs with India eyeing the big wickets of Joe Root and Ben Stokes on day 3. England have a mountain to climb still and there in lies India's chance to pile up the pressure on the hosts.
Opening Was Not His Place In Test Cricket - Sourav Ganguly On Shubman Gill
Ganguly took to his official X handle to praise Shubman Gill's knock. He rated Gill's knock as a flawless one while adding that opening was not the slot for him in Test cricket.
"An absolute masterclass from Gill... just flawless. One of the best innings I have seen in England in any era. So much improvement in the last few months. Probably opening was not his place in Test cricket" Ganguly wrote on his X handle.
The Indian Test skipper now has a century and a double century in consecutive Tests since he started batting at number four. He also went past the likes of Sunil, Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli surpassing their individual highest scores. He has now started leaving his own imprint as he succeeded Sachin and then Kohli at number four.
After the end of the day's play, he spoke about his knock and also the wicket. He recalled speaking to Gautam Gambhir about the wicket on day 1 after tea.
"When I went in to bat before lunch on the first day, at tea I was on around 35-40 runs off about 100 balls. I came out and spoke to GG [Gautam Gambhir] Bhai. I told him, ‘I’m not getting runs freely, even though I have a lot of shots in my armoury.’ I also felt the ball was a bit soft," Gill said.
Wasn't Enjoying My Batting As Much - Gill
He concluded by saying that before this knock, he thought he was not enjoying his batting thinking too much about the number of runs he scored.
"Sometimes, when you aren’t scoring runs fluently, you stop enjoying your batting. You focus too much on the need to score runs. I felt I had lost that in my batting. I was so focused that I wasn’t enjoying my batting as much," he said.
Also Read: Shubman Gill Scripts History with Record-Breaking Double Century at Edgbaston
