Shubman Gill's Edgbaston Double Century Revives His Love For Batting

The Indian Test skipper Shubman Gill received a lot of praise for his tremendous performance in the second test against England at Edgbaston. With his incredible knock, he made a heap of records in his career, scoring his career-best Test score at the venue. He also became the second youngest Indian skipper to smash a Test double century at the age of just 25, after Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, and became the first Asian captain to smash a double hundred in SENA countries.

This was not easy; Gill recalled the adjustments he made to find success in the conditions after he had few runs on previous tours. The newly No. 4 batter also accepted that there was a time when he lost the enjoyment in batting during his run in red-ball cricket before the tour.

In the first Test at Headingley, as a test captain for the first time, he made a score of 147 in the first innings and became only the fourth Indian to make centuries in their first two tests as captain.

Gill said,

"I mainly worked on my initial movement and my setup. Before this, I felt my batting was going well. I was scoring 30-35-40 runs consistently in Test matches. But at some point, I was missing that peak concentration time. A lot of people say that when you focus too much, you sometimes miss your peak time."

"So, in this series, I tried to go back to my basics. I tried to bat like I used to in my childhood. I didn't think about having reached 35-40 runs or about playing long innings. I just wanted to enjoy my batting."

Further, he stated that when a player doesn't score runs consistently, he stops enjoying batting, and after that, they focus too much on runs.

He said,

"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."

"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 Gautam Gambhir, Bhai. I told him, I'm not getting runs freely, even though I have a lot of shots in my armory. I also felt the ball was a bit soft."

"In the last match, I was scoring more fluently, but here it wasn't coming as easily. Still, my mindset was that if the wicket is good and I am set, no matter how long I bat, I shouldn't leave the match halfway."

"In the last match, I learned that no matter how long you've been batting, under these conditions, there can be a collapse in the lower order at any time. So I tried to stay out there as long as I could. I wanted the bowler to get me out with a good ball, and I shouldn't make mistakes. That was my approach."

India had made a huge score of 587, the highest total in England in 18 years, which main contribution goes to Shubman Gill's great knock; the visitors had made Ben Stokes team 77 for three wickets at the end of Day 2.