India produced a brilliant fightback in the ongoing Ahmedabad Test, with Shubman Gill and Virat Kohli leading the charge. Gill notched his second Test ton as India, who resumed their first innings from the overnight score of 36/0, went to pile 289/3 at stumps on Day 3, trailing by 191 runs. Gill scored 128 off 235 balls, featuring 12 fours and a six, which he smashed in the final over of Day 2.
Kohli, on the other hand, finally got going for the first time in the ongoing Border-Gavaskar Trophy as he played a watchful knock of 59 off 128 balls and ensured he remained not-out to kick-off India’s charge on Day 4. During the course of his innings on Day 3, Kohli and Australia’s stand-in skipper Steve Smith also engaged in some light hearted on field moment.
In a video doing rounds on social media, both were seen engaged in a conversation, with Kohli’s bat probably being the topic of discussion. In fact Smith was also seen knocking the willow with his index fingers, before both left for their positions. Kohli was then joined by Marnus Labuschagne as the two kept walking. Here is the video:
Dinesh Karthik, who was commentating at the moment, also took note of the rare moment between the two talismanic modern era batters. “75 years of friendship, and friendship between Steven Smith and Virat Kohli. Two legends,” he noted on-air.
Meanwhile, the day started with Gill leading the proceedings with skipper Rohit Sharma, who was dismissed for 35 off 58 balls. Cheteshwar Pujara then walked in and went to stitch a pivotal 113-run partnership for the second wicket with Gill, before getting out for 42 by Todd Murphy.
Watch: Shubman Gill kicks turf in anger after being dismissed by Nathan Lyon for 128
Kohli, who had just managed 111 runs until this knock, kept the scoreboard ticking and became the only fifth Indian batter to reach the 4000-run mark in the longer format on home soil.
The fifty by Kohli too came after a long gap of 14 months, with his previous being against South Africa in January last year. Moving ahead, Kohli would now look to convert this into a triple digit mark, which will also put an end to his century drought in the red-ball format. Kohli’s last Test century came against Bangladesh back in 2019.
Meanwhile, speaking to the official broadcaster post stumps, Gill said: “It feels great to score a hundred here. This is my IPL home ground and glad to get some runs here. The pitch was pretty good to bat on. Anything happening off the pitch was off the rough area. I was looking to pick singles whenever possible. Honestly, I was still trying to be positive and was keep looking for singles. They weren’t attacking that much. We are three down for almost 300. We would look to get a big score on day 4. Who knows the wicket might help our bowlers on day 5.”
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