A jolt to India's batting future

Defeat at Centurion underlines need to find more hard-boiled competitors for Tests from younger batters 

- Somshuvra Laha

Twenty-four balls into his innings, Shubman Gill seemed to be on a roll. Kagiso Rabada had just induced a streaky edge that flew past gully, but a short-arm pull through long on and a whip off the pads for boundaries before that suggested all was well. Nandre Burger's leftarm seam was taking the ball away from the right-hander but when he overpitched Gill didn't hesitate to drive for four. Ditto to Marco Jansen, who slanted the ball so far across Gill that he almost leaned into a glorious drive.

Jansen needed to do something different, so he came around the wicket. First ball was a juicy half volley that Gill was all eye-hand coordination in caressing it through extra cover. The next two balls were straighter but of mixed lengths, preventing Gill from loading into an attacking stride. Then came a fuller, angling in delivery. Ideally, Gill should have driven it straighter. But since Gill's bat doesn't come down straight, he instinctively went for midwicket and ended up missing the trajectory of the ball to be bowled. The conventional inswinger from the left-arm fast bowler is a relatively unknown commodity and it was still too early in his innings for Gill to counterpunch his way out.