On Thursday, February 6, Shubman Gill, the right-handed batter, scored a match-winning innings of 87 runs for India against England in the first ODI of the three-match series at the Vidarbha Cricket Association (VCA) Stadium in Nagpur. With the help of Shubman Gill’s impressive batting performance after walking out to bat at No. 3, India got past the finishing line with four wickets in hand and 68 balls to spare, to take a 1-0 lead in the series.
In pursuit of the 249-run target, when India lost their openers Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal early in the first power play stage, Shubman Gill took charge of the team’s innings. He stitched together a vital stand of 96 runs for the third wicket with Shreyas Iyer, who scored 59 runs in just 36 balls, to put India in a commanding position in the run chase.
Watch the video here:
After that, Shubman Gill was joined at the crease by Axar Patel, who was promoted up the batting order ahead of KL Rahul and Hardik Pandya, and they managed to share a partnership of 108 runs for the fourth wicket. During this batting stand, not only Gill, but also Patel got past his fifty, to bring India within touching distance of a win in the first ODI in Nagpur.
Shubman Gill reached 87 runs in 96 balls with 14 fours before losing his wicket to Saqib Mahmood on the pull, getting caught at mid-on by England captain Jos Buttler at the VCA Stadium.
Below are the playing XIs of India and England for first ODI in Nagpur:
India: Rohit Sharma (c), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Shreyas Iyer, Shubman Gill, KL Rahul (wk), Hardik Pandya, Axar Patel, Ravindra Jadeja, Harshit Rana, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami
England: Ben Duckett, Phil Salt (wk), Joe Root, Harry Brook, Jos Buttler (c), Liam Livingstone, Jacob Bethell, Brydon Carse, Jofra Archer, Adil Rashid, Saqib Mahmood
