IND vs ENG, 4th Test Match, Day 4: Can Gill’s XI Rise From the Ashes at Old Trafford?

<strong>Karan Pradhan</strong> previews Day 4 as England presses its advantage and India’s battered captain must find a way to hit refresh.

Shubman Gill will want to give himself and his team the biggest chance of achieving something unprecedented. Photo via BCCI

Published on the cusp of play, #PreMatchMemo sets the scene before each Test — spotlighting arcs, angles, and all that’s in play before the first ball is bowled.

Catch the highlights from Days 1 2 and 3.

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FRIDAY the third day of the Manchester Test, saw Shubman Gill face the sternest test of this fledgling captaincy so far. The stage was set for the Indian skipper to marshall the six bowlers at his disposal and dismantle England’s batting machine. Would he adopt an aggressive approach? Would he try to outfox the home batters? Or would he attempt to brute force them into submission with his battery of quicks?

As it turned out, the answer was ‘none of the above’ because the hosts would pile 319 runs on top of their overnight score of 225/2. Following Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett’s half-centuries on the second day of the Test, Ollie Pope chipped in with one of his own, while captain Ben Stokes remained unbeaten on 77 (in an innings split in two by cramps). The big story of the day for England, though, was Joe Root and his 150 runs that took him within 2,512 runs of Sachin Tendulkar’s record for most runs in a Test career.

His knock saw him leapfrog the illustrious trio of Rahul Dravid, Jacques Kallis and Ricky Ponting on his way to second place on the all-time pitch. In his typically understated manner and without doing anything particularly explosive or risky, he had marched to a ton-and-a-half by the time Ravindra Jadeja lured him out of his crease to be stumped 15-or-so overs before the end of play.

On the topic of Jadeja, it was he and Washington Sundar who finally put the skids under the English batting juggernaut with their spin accounting for Pope, Root and Harry Brook. However, questions will be asked about how long it took Gill to actually bring Sundar into the attack — a whole 22 overs into the third day. The ball was old enough at the start of the day’s play and it might not have been the worst idea to throw the off-spinner the ball for a couple of overs. Instead, the Indian captain relied on the worryingly pedestrian Jasprit Bumrah and ineffectual Anshul Kambhoj for a while longer than he ideally should’ve.

By the time the umpires called for stumps on Day 3, England was sitting pretty on 544/7 — 186 runs ahead with Stokes and Liam Dawson still at the crease — and India’s hopes of claiming the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy grew increasingly bleaker.

THE DAY AHEAD

Ask any sportsperson about the solution to a bad day on the field and they’ll tell you it’s the next match, the next tournament, the next season or in this case, the next day. And few will be looking forward to Day 4 more than Gill. After a bright start to his tenure as captain that featured good strategy, aggression and bouts of getting in the face of the opposition (something of a prerequisite in a post-Virat Kohli era), and a purple patch with the bat, the Indian captain was brought crashing back to earth.

He seemed listless, uninspired and bereft of anything resembling proactivity. Some of the reactive decision-making was mildly reminiscent of that of Mohammad Azharuddin back in Indian cricket’s miserable mid-1990s. Bowling changes seemed either like an afterthought or blind stabs in the dark, and Gill stood around quietly allowing the match to happen, rather than grabbing it by the reins and making things happen. Turning that around will be atop his itinerary for the fourth day.

It’s probably not an exaggeration to suggest at this stage that only two outcomes seem likely at Old Trafford: A draw or an England win. The hosts have likely scored too many runs already for the visitors to force a win. That would require the first innings deficit to be overhauled and at least 250 to 300 more runs being scored. And then, India would want somewhere in the vicinity of two-and-a-half sessions (at the very least) to attempt to bowl out England. Of course, this highly optimistic plan would entail the visitors not only mopping up the hosts’ tail post-haste on Saturday morning, but also piling up 400-plus runs in the overs that remain.

And yet, stranger (although not much stranger) things have happened in Test cricket. Gill will want to give himself and his team the biggest chance of achieving something unprecedented by infusing some leadership and gumption into proceedings. And it will take a monumental team effort to overhaul this England side. As it stands, however, it looks increasingly like England will go into the Oval Test with an insurmountable lead.

Elsewhere and presumably inspired by his teammate Root, Stokes will be eyeing up a chance to etch his own name in the history books by joining Tony Greig, Ian Botham and Gus Atkinson on the list of English players to score 100 runs and bag five wickets in an innings of a Test match. On the other end of the spectrum, Kamboj will seek a major course correction to prevent his Test debut from turning into a damp squib in the sogginess of Manchester. A fiery opening hour (at the very least) beckons.

Karan Pradhan is editor-in-chief of Story Mode a gaming and gaming-adjacent magazine. Follow him on X/Twitter @karanpradhan_

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