India skipper Shubman Gill came up with his 11th Test hundred in the Test against Afghanistan. The Men in Blue are hosting neighbours Afghanistan in a multi-format series, which kicked off with a one-off Test on June 6 in Mullanpur. The game saw home skipper Gill winning the toss and inviting the rivals to field first. Though India got off to a unfavorable start as they lost opener Yashasvi Jaiswal at a below par score of 24 runs in 32 deliveries. While the visitors seemed to have early control over the game, opener KL Rahul and skipper Gill went on to play commendable knocks to put the home side in a dominating position by the end of the opening day.
After KL Rahul came up with his 12th Test century, Gill smashed his 11th century in the longest format. He utilized 138 deliveries for the same and reached the milestone in 82.5 overs. The 26-year-old celebrated the knock by taking off his helmet and raising his bat to acknowledge the applause from his home crowd as well as his teammates. With his knock, Gill also has the fifth most hundreds as a Test captain with six in 15* innings.
He is behind Virat Kohli’s record of 20 hundreds, Sunil Gavaskar’s 11, Mohd. Azharuddin’s 9, and Sachin Tendulkar’s 7 Test centuries as the captain.
Shubman Gill records 1000 Test runs as India Captain
Earlier during the game, he reached his 1000 Test run mark as the captain of the side. With this, he became the 11th player to do so. In addition, he reached the milestone in his 15th innings, and became the second-quickest for India behind Sunil Gavaskar. Not only this, but the Punjab cricketer also took the least number of days by an Indian captain to reach there in 351 days. Not only this, but Gill also recorded his ninth Test fifty earlier during the day in 68 deliveries.
Talking about the game, the hosts called it a day by posting 368 runs with the loss of three wickets in 85 overs. While Jaiswal couldn’t score much, the rest of the lineup put up a remarkable performance to put India in a dominating position. Apart from Rahul and Gill’s impressive hundreds, Sai Sudharsan posted 81 runs in 104 bills and Rishabh Pant was batting at 50* runs in 70 balls. Gill was batting at 103* by the end of Day 1 in New Chandigarh.
