After his magnificent double hundred towards England, India skipper Shubman Gill on Thursday (July 3, 2025) stated he had stopped having fun with his batting in pursuit of runs however going back to fundamentals and making some technical modifications helped him rediscover the enjoyment in his craft.
Gill struck 269 off 387 balls to change into the primary Indian and Asian captain to rating a double hundred in a Test match in England as India posted an enormous 587 on day two of the second Test right here.
Asked if he labored on his method forward of the sequence, Gill advised host broadcaster: “Yes, absolutely. I think at the end of the IPL and before this series, I worked a lot on this.”
“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 sequence, I tried to go back to my fundamentals. I tried to bat like I used to in my childhood. I didn’t take into consideration having reached 35-40 runs or about enjoying lengthy innings. I simply needed to get pleasure from my batting.”
Gill posted the highest individual score by an Indian batter on English soil, surpassing Sunil Gavaskar’s 221 at The Oval in 1979.
“Sometimes, once you aren’t scoring runs fluently, you cease having fun with your batting. You focus an excessive amount of on the necessity to rating runs. I felt I had misplaced that in my batting. I was so targeted that I wasn’t having fun with my batting as a lot,” he said.
Gill’s knock is also the highest by an Indian captain in Tests, surpassing Virat Kohli’s unbeaten 254 against South Africa in Pune in 2019.
“When I went in to bat earlier than lunch on the primary day, at tea I was on round 35-40 runs off about 100 balls. I got here out and spoke to GG [Gautam Gambhir] Bhai. I advised him, ‘I’m not getting runs freely, despite the fact that I have a number of pictures in my armoury.’ I additionally felt the ball was a bit delicate,” the Punjab cricketer said.
“In the final match, I was scoring extra fluently, however right here it wasn’t coming as simply. Still, my mindset was that if the wicket is sweet and I am set, irrespective of how lengthy I bat, I shouldn’t depart the match midway.
“In the last match, I learnt 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,” he stated.
Gill, who captained Gujarat Titans to the playoffs, was seen getting ready for the England Test sequence by practising with the pink ball through the IPL season in Ahmedabad.
“Because the IPL setup, the white-ball setup, and what I wanted to do there were very different. So I thought that if I started my preparation from then itself, it would give me an edge when the time for the series came,” he stated.
Gill admitted that it’s powerful to change from one format to one other.
“It is very difficult. Especially with the way T20 is played nowadays, in the last 4-5 years, there has been a huge difference in technique, setup, and mindset.
“It’s simple to go from T20 to T20, however coming back from T20 to Tests is a bit tough as a result of you’ve got been practising a technique together with your workforce and your instincts are tuned to that.
“Controlling that and repeatedly telling your mind and body to adapt is challenging. That’s why I started training for Tests during the IPL itself. That’s when I began preparing my mind and body.” Indian pacers additionally did effectively to scale back England to 77/3 on the finish of the second day, and Gill stated the important thing can be to bowl in the fitting areas to frustrate the batters.
“I think once the ball gets a little old, it becomes difficult to take wickets. So, the more we consistently bowl in one area and frustrate their batsmen, the better it is for us.” Gill additionally make clear India’s doable strategy with the ball.
“We will try to make them score in only one area. Because when a batsman is able to score all around the ground, it becomes difficult to control them… I think our bowlers executed their plans really well.
“[The pitch] doesn’t have rather a lot for bowlers, however sufficient that if a batsman tries too laborious, there are probabilities of getting out. When the batsman tries to do one thing totally different, the probabilities of getting him out improve.
“So, we will try to frustrate them while they bat, and wherever they try to score runs, we won’t give them that opportunity. I think that will be the most important thing for our bowling,” he famous.
