HOUSE-THAT! LEGACY INTACT

Gill and Jurel stand up as hosts complete series win over England; India have now won 17 home bilaterals on the trot

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WHEN Shubman Gill took guard against Shoaib Bashir in the 60th over, he had faced 119 balls for 39 runs without a single boundary. It’s what the situation demanded. He just batted time. But it wasn’t easy. Even as he was watching from the non-striker’s end, Rohit Sharma was out caught behind.

Before long, all three of Ravindra Jadeja, Rajat Patidar and Sarfaraz Khan had followed the captain. At 120/5, the remaining 72 would have seemed like 172 for Gill. The surface was playing tricks and both Shoaib Bashir and Tom Hartley were bowling in tandem.

In Dhruv Jurel, Gill found a companion. The No. 3, wearing a cap, going about his task one ball at a time. With every appeal, you could see the tension among the fans in the stands. Barbados 1997? Chennai 1999? Galle 2015? Even Hyderabad from a few weeks ago? The flashbacks of past heartbreaks would have flashed by.

Little did they know they were going to witness something similar to Adelaide 2003. They defended, worked the ball with a vertical bat the lack of bounce meant across-theline shots were difficult and used their feet to get to the pitch of the ball more often than not. To put some context into this passage of play, India didn’t have a boundary off the bat) between overs 16 and 46.5. They did not even so much as attempt to hit one. In this 30.5 overs, India’s score went from 82/0 to 146/5.