The Shubman Gill-Yashasvi Jaiswal debate has of late been the hottest debate in India’s cricketing fraternity and the rivalry found an unexpected new chapter in Cuttack. After Yashasvi Jaiswal had taken a screamer in Nagpur, Shubman Gill replicated the feat with a similar catch of his own on Sunday.
England capitalized on a strong powerplay where they accumulated 75 runs without any loss to build with patience in the middle order, veering away from their attack-no-matter-what template of late. The change in game plan was most evident during a 66-run stand between Harry Brook and Joe Root off 83 balls, both batters having the potential to explode towards the end and blow the Men in Blue out of the water. Smothing special was needed to find the breakthrough given how unbeatable both batters looked, and that is exactly what Shubman Gill produced to earn the breakthrough.
On the fourth ball of the 30th over, Harshit Rana cleverly rolled his fingers across the ball while Brook made room to go for a big shot and horridly miscued his shot to send it sailing in the air. As the Kookaburra soared, it seemed to be destined for the no-man’s land between the bowler and the boundary with mid-on and mid-off up but Gill had other plans. The youngster went charging from inside the circle, sprinting with his head firmly turned around to keep the ball in his sights. As the Kookaburra dipped over Gill’s shoulder, the opener timed his grab brilliantly to safely pouch the ball and keep it from falling even as he took a tumble to the ground.
Gill was unsurprisingly ecstatic, presumably well aware of how similar the effort was to the iconic Kapil Dev catch in the 1983 World Cup final, as were his teammates. Funnily enough, another such catch had been taken just the previous ODI itself by fellow young opener Yashasvi Jaiswal who is sitting out the second ODI.
Partnership broken in style!
An excellent running catch by Vice-captain Shubman Gill 🔥🔥
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