Shubman Gill scales new peaks as India captain | Cricket News

Emulates Virat Kohli by scoring five tons as skipper in a calendar year; Jadeja, Kuldeep strike as Windies reduced to 140/4 in reply to India’s 518/5 declaredNEW DELHI: On a day of freak dismissals and an equally freaky run of good form for Shubman Gill, the only variance to the expected script was a flutter of defiance from the West Indies with the bat, which came as a breath of fresh air.The rest played out on expected lines. India’s captain — never one to look a gift horse in the mouth — cashed in on the opportunity to flay a sub-par bowling attack with a 129 off 196 balls (16×4, 2×6), an innings at once elegant and compact.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!Gill, resuming on an overnight 20, was seen practising his bat swing with his bottom hand before play began. He carried his decisiveness to the middle, eliminating his earlier weaknesses against incoming deliveries by ensuring he kept bat and pad close, was disciplined in his footwork to get the timing going yet adventurous enough to often step out and mess with the bowlers’ lengths.Some remarkable flicks, backfoot punches, cover drives, cuts, and a lofted drive ensued. Gill played with rival captain Roston Chase’s field placing too, often hitting boundaries in a bunch, forcing changes and then guiding the balls through gaps to jaunt through to the second-highest average as captain after seven Tests after Don Bradman — a wildly impressive 84.41. He even replicated Kohli’s feat with his fifth century as captain in a calendar year.

Gill’s knock and some quick 40s from a promoted Nitish Kumar Reddy and Dhruv Jurel carried India to 518/5 declared, and it’s a safe bet they won’t be required to bat again in this Test.Gill’s fluency was welcome after his partnership with Yashasvi Jaiswal ended on a bitter note and a messy mix-up. Jaiswal (175; 258b; 22×4) missed out on what many thought would be a certain double ton by guiding the eighth ball of the morning, from Anderson Phillip, to mid off and then rushing through to the danger end, where it seemed the prospect of a run never crossed Gill’s mind.Expectedly, Jaiswal couldn’t make his way back and stood shell-shocked before storming off with words exchanged, but that wasn’t the end of the drama — replays showed ’keeper Tevin Imlach barely had the ball in his gloves when he whipped the bails off! The incident reprised memories of Jaiswal’s equally confounding affair with Kohli in Melbourne late last year, though to be fair it was his call on both occasions.That wasn’t the only unusual dismissal on the day — West Indies opener John Campbell later slog-swept Ravindra Jadeja straight down the throat and helmet grill of forward short leg, where Sai Sudharsan miraculously held on, hurting his hand and going off in the bargain.Jaiswal cooled down enough by the end of the day to downplay his own incident, though, saying only that “it’s a part of the game, so it’s fine”. Gill putting on an exhibition for the Saturday crowd made up somewhat for the disappointment. These are, after all, potential ‘banana-skin’ encounters for India in which they’re simply expected to turn up and roll over the opposition. So it was a surprise to see Jadeja (3/37 off 14 overs) and Kuldeep Yadav having to work hard for their wickets when the West Indies batted, no thanks to the Kotla track, on which little seemed to happen off the surface.Alick Athanaze and Tagenarine Chanderpaul even put on the team’s first half-century stand of the series, frustrating the bowlers. Athanaze looked good for 84 balls and scored 41, the team’s highest individual score of the series, before the team again threw it all away. Some nervy strokes, back-to-back wickets between the first ball of the 33rd over and the third ball of the 34th — which got rid of Athanaze and skipper Chase — left the team staring at another early defeat at 140/4 by stumps.The soft dismissals were inexplicable and restored the status quo, leaving Gill to bask in the glory of a magnificent run of form. The knock reinforced the arrival of India’s next big batting superstar and unanimous choice of leader in this format. “It helps the team when the captain leads by example,” Jadeja later said. “Gill and Jaiswal are part of a new generation which believes in taking responsibility.”On this day, though, Jaiswal was left to rue what could have been, just like the Windies batters.