India captain Shubman Gill lost his wicket due to a run-out on 21 runs against England on the first day of Oval Test. Despite looking completely at ease on a tough pitch and hitting four swift boundaries, Gill shockingly lost his wicket due to a run-out.
Gill ended up going for a run that wasn't there at all and paid the price for his mistake. He tapped the ball to the off-side and quickly ran for a single. It looked like an instinctive move, but then he noticed that Sai Sudarshan wasn’t running. Meanwhile, Gus Atkinson picked up the ball quickly and unleashed a direct-hit, leaving Gill short of his crease.
Ten Doeschate defended Gill over the run-out
After the day's play, India assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate was asked about Gill's dismissal during the post-day press-conference. He ended up defending the India captain and stated that silly mistakes do happen at times.
"I'm assuming not as frustrating as it is for him. He's in the touch of his life. Again, today he made batting look really easy for the 40 minutes or whatever he was out there. But you know, these mistakes do happen. England actually bowled nicely in that little spell," ten Doeschate said.
"I guess it's getting that balance right of trying to keep the pressure on the bowlers and the fielders, and taking the runs where you can. But that's a misjudgment of a run. And I think given what he's done in the first four Tests, we'll let him get away with that one," he added.
Despite getting dismissed for cheap in the fifth and final Test against England, Gill surpassed the legendary Sunil Gavaskar on an elite list. With his inning of 21, Gill took his run-tally for the series to 743 runs in nine innings, surpassing Gavaskar's tally of 732 runs against West Indies which came in a series held in 1978/79. The 25-year-old has so far scored four hundreds and is also currently the highest-scorer of the ongoing series.
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The India captain is now just 32 runs shy of becoming the highest run-scorer for the Men in Blue in a Test series, a record which is held by Gavaskar with his tally of 774 runs that came against West Indies in a series held in 1970/71. It remains to be seen if Gill will manage to score the required runs and break the massive record in what will be his and India's final inning of the series against England.