After his magnificent double hundred against England, India skipper Shubman Gill on Thursday said he had stopped enjoying his batting in pursuit of runs but going back to basics and making some technical changes helped him rediscover the joy in his craft.
Gill struck 269 off 387 balls to become the first Indian and Asian captain to score a double hundred in a Test match in England as India posted a massive 587 on day two of the second Test at Edgbaston in Birmingham.
Asked if he worked on his technique ahead of the series, Gill told 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 series, I tried to go back to my basics. I tried to bat like I used to in my childhood. I didn’t think about having reached 35-40 runs or about playing long innings. I just wanted to enjoy 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, when you aren’t scoring runs fluently, you stop enjoying your batting. You focus too much on the need to score runs. I felt I had lost that in my batting. I was so focused that I wasn’t enjoying my batting as much," 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 before lunch on the first day, at tea I was on around 35-40 runs off about 100 balls. I came out and spoke to GG (Gautam Gambhir) Bhai. I told him, ‘I’m not getting runs freely, even though I have a lot of shots in my armoury.’ I also felt the ball was a bit soft," the Punjab cricketer said.
"In the last match, I was scoring more fluently, but here it wasn’t coming as easily. Still, my mindset was that if the wicket is good and I am set, no matter how long I bat, I shouldn’t leave the match halfway.
"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 said.
Gill, who captained Gujarat Titans to the playoffs, was seen preparing for the England Test series by practising with the red ball during 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 said.
Gill admitted that it is tough to switch from one format to another.
"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 easy to go from T20 to T20, but coming back from T20 to Tests is a bit difficult because you have been practising one way with your team 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 also did well to reduce England to 77/3 at the end of the second day, and Gill said the key would be to bowl in the right 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 also shed light on India's possible approach 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 a lot for bowlers, but enough that if a batsman tries too hard, there are chances of getting out. When the batsman tries to do something different, the chances of getting him out increase.
"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 noted.
