Shubman Gill creates Test cricket history as India dominates England

India is powering toward a massive series-tying victory over England in the second Test at Edgbaston after a record-setting day four performance by Shubman Gill.

Gill, in his first series as India captain, became the first player to score a double hundred and a 150 in the same Test by making 161 in his team's 6-427 declared in the second innings.

That followed his 269 in the first-innings 587. His personal match total of 430 runs was behind just former England opener Graham Gooch (456 against India in 1990) in the records book.

It handed the English a target of 608 — making it by some way a world-record chase — and they slumped to 3-72 by stumps.

Zak Crawley (0), Ben Duckett (25) and key batter Joe Root (6) were dismissed.

England requires 536 more runs to win. Even for a group as aggressive and ambitious as this "Bazball" crop of players, a draw was surely the best they could hope for — and even that is highly improbable.

India will be favoured to make it 1-1 in the series and Gill is leading the charge, even if his declaration might be regarded as conservative. England fans were certainly displeased with the India skipper making his team bat on until the drinks break in the last session, as they chanted, "boring, boring India".

What could not be denied was Gill's excellence with the bat as the Indians racked up more runs — 1,014 — than they've ever scored in a Test match.

He hit 13 fours and eight sixes in his 162-ball knock that was relatively sedate early on — especially compared to Rishabh Pant at the other end either side of lunch as the wicketkeeper made an incident-filled, bat-tossing 65 — before he opened his shoulders as he headed to the 150 mark.

It was a chanceless innings before Gill top-edged a return catch to off-spinner Shoaib Bashir. Such was the quality of Gill's display that Bashir and England captain Ben Stokes shook his hand as he walked off the field.

Gill is just the second Indian, after the great Sunil Gavaskar (124 and 220) against the West Indies in 1971, to score a double-hundred and a hundred in the same test.

Pant's innings was a wild crowd-pleaser that validated his status as one of cricket's most flamboyant batters.

The end came when he attempted to pull Bashir for six — only to miscue the shot while also letting go of his bat, which flew toward mid-wicket and to the feet of England fielder Brydon Carse.

Meanwhile, the ball looped high in the air and into the deep on the offside where it was caught by Duckett.

Carse collected the bat and returned it to Pant, who walked off to an ovation after his 16th Test 50. It was the second time in the match Pant released his bat making a shot, with the other seeing it fly 20m, behind square leg.

India began the day on 1-64 — with a lead of 244 runs — and lost two wickets before lunch. Karun Nair (26) drove and edged Carse to wicketkeeper Jamie Smith, while Lokesh Rahul (55) lost his middle stump to a seaming delivery by pacer Josh Tongue.

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Ravindra Jadeja was unbeaten on 69 when Gill declared.

England was facing a mighty, overwhelming target and made a poor start with a seventh duck of the match as Crawley meekly drove Mohammed Siraj to backward point.

That was 1-11 and it was soon 2-30 when Duckett glanced an inside edge onto his own stumps off pacer Akash Deep.

With 15 minutes remaining, Deep got another as a seaming delivery was too good for Root and went through his defence onto the stumps.

Ollie Pope (24) and Harry Brook (15) were the men in the middle at the close.

England leads the series after winning at Headingley last week, reaching a target of 371 for the 10th-highest fourth-innings run chase in Test history.

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AP

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