Border-Gavaskar Trophy: Fit-again Gill scores fifty, Harshit impresses with 4 wickets
Shubman Gill dispelled all doubts about his thumb injury with a stylish fifty even as skipper Rohit Sharma kept cards close to his chest by coming in at No. 4 in India’s curtailed pink-ball warm-up game against Prime Minister’s XI.
It remains to be seen if the Indian captain would come out to open in the second Test against Australia, starting Friday in Adelaide.
It was a 46-overs-a-side affair, which India won by chasing down an easy target of 241 in 42.5 overs, but they carried on batting till the end of the final over. For Australia, Test hopeful Sam Konstas’ 107 off 97 balls went in vain.
The Indian team management was tactical in its choices as Virat Kohli and Jasprit Bumrah decided on facing each other at the nets rather than providing data to the Aussie think-tank.
Interestingly, Ravichandran Ashwin, who didn’t play the Perth Test, was seen at the nets, mostly bowling to Kohli. Ashwin had a four-wicket haul in the last pink-ball Test in Adelaide in 2020-21. Ravindra Jadeja, however, got a few overs and also batted for some time.
Rohit persisted with the opening combination of Yashasvi Jaiswal and KL Rahul, dropping himself down the order. However, his own game time was limited to 11 deliveries as he edged one to the slips under the night lights.
The biggest piece of news for India was Gill’s batting. A cracking square cut first up off seamer Mahli Beardman indicated that his fractured left thumb has completely healed and he is ready to play the Adelaide game. He looked pretty comfortable against Scott Boland, whom he faced during his second spell. Gill punished the pacers and spinners alike with seven boundaries before he retired after facing 62 balls.
Jaiswal (45 off 59 balls) and Nitish Kumar Reddy (42 off 32 balls), both players with virtually no experience of facing the pink ball at domestic level, threw their bats around and got some runs.
Rishabh Pant also didn’t come out to bat, much to the disappointment of the 1000-odd Indian fans present at the Manuka Oval.
Harshit Rana, who has already earned the vote of confidence from the team management with an impressive Test debut at Perth, picked four wickets here to strengthen his credentials as a wicket-taking bowler.
In all, India made the best use of the limited practice opportunity. “It was fantastic. We got what we wanted as a group. Little unlucky we could not get the whole game,” Rohit said.
Brief scores: Australia PM XI: 240 in 43.2 over (Konstas 107, Jacobs 61, Clayton 40; Harshit 4/44, Akash 2/58); India: 257/5 in 46 overs (Gill 50* retd, Jaiswal 45, Nitish 42, Sundar 42*).
