Before this Test, the talk was of India’s absent stars. No Virat Kohli, no Rohit Sharma. No problem, as it turned out. On a warm Headingley day, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill demanded that our attention switch to the present and the future, rather than the past, with dominant hundreds after India were sent in by Ben Stokes, on a chastening day for England.
The decision to bowl first was prompted by statistics that show the past six Tests have been won by the side doing so, and because recent evidence suggests the Headingley pitch does not deteriorate as before, but be that as it may England’s bowlers were a long way short of their best. Gill, too, would have bowled first, but after feasting on a diet of inconsistent seam bowling, now has a chance to control the game.
When, deep into the final session, Gill leant on a drive to bring up his hundred, he took a bow, coolly, towards the dressing room. If this is a contest between generals, young and old, within the context of a larger battle, then young Gill took the honours on the opening day. Stokes was the only seamer to concede fewer than four runs an over and was the best on show, which was both a good and worrying sign, but he was left with plenty to ponder.
Jaiswal battled an early blow to the ribs from Brydon Carse and a bad attack of cramp to his right hand and forearm just before tea to register his fifth Test hundred and his third against England in only six matches. At 23 years old, he is one of the most exciting young players of the moment and looks driven to make the most of his talent, as those who have known deprivation tend to be.
He made more than 700 runs in the 2024 series, including double hundreds in Visakhapatnam and Rajkot, but the way he celebrated his hundred here, swinging his helmet above his head and roaring his delight, showed how much a hundred in English conditions meant to him. All batsmen are judged by their performances in the round and Jaiswal now has hundreds in the Caribbean, Australia and England, as well as at home.
Gill, who arrived to the crease immediately after lunch, following the loss of two quick wickets, looked in rare touch. At one point, he had to take treatment to his back from the physiotherapist, but there was no sense that he was unduly burdened carrying the captain’s load. Having benefitted from a missed a run-out opportunity at the start of his innings, after Ollie Pope missed with a shy at the stumps from mid-wicket, Gill played with great freedom.
This was a vital innings for him at the start of his captaincy, with all the added scrutiny and pressure that job brings. More than anything else, the role becomes easier if a captain is scoring runs or taking wickets, and Gill’s record overseas and in the three Tests he had played in England hitherto (one against England and two World Test Championship finals) suggested he had questions to answer. He provided them in definitive fashion here.
The toss offered the kind of conundrum dreaded by captains. Set against the numbers was the cricketing common sense of a warm morning, forecast for hot weather and a pitch whose final cut had bleached the greenish hue. Stokes went with the numbers, but had no cause to reflect happily on that.
There was swing when the lacquer had come off the ball, but England’s bowling was inconsistent, not helped, perhaps, by Josh Tongue’s and Carse’s lack of experience on the ground. Both were playing their first first-class games here and Headingley is a peculiar ground for bowlers, with the slope challenging their rhythm and stride patterns. Jasiwal, for example, would have been leg-before on 45, but Carse overstepped the front-line.
Headingley is also a fast-scoring ground and KL Rahul’s innings in the morning encapsulated the dilemma for captains and bowlers who must stay bold by pitching a full length and keeping slip catchers in play, set against the risk of being driven as a consequence. Rahul’s first boundary was a sketchy one, but after that he met the ball flush, with a number of lovely, elegant off-side drives.
With lunch looming, India were sitting pretty. England had burned a review, the new ball had failed to bring any reward, and the bowling had been largely unthreatening. Then Rahul chased a wide ball from Carse, edging to Joe Root at first slip, giving Sai Sudharsan a horrible few minutes before lunch on debut. When he tickled one nervily down the leg-side for a duck the complexion of the morning changed.
Stokes bowled a six-over spell either side of lunch and then a seven over spell either side of tea and looked in good rhythm. Occasionally in the morning, Jaiswal had looked discomfited to short balls at the ribs, but when the short ball ploy was called upon in the afternoon, he responded by slapping Tongue into the Western Terrace for six. He is a brilliant player through the off side.
Gill is more of a languid player and enjoyed tucking into Chris Woakes, who leaked boundaries more readily than usual. Three drives in Woakes’s afternoon spell, through mid-off, extra cover and mid-wicket showed him at his best. As tea approached, cramp was the greatest threat to Jaiswal, but he skipped into three-figures with two boundaries and a dabbed single in three consecutive balls off Tongue.
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Jaiswal likes to go big, as the 2024 series suggested, but he was bowled by a beauty from Stokes shortly after tea. This brought Rishabh Pant to the crease, who played an extraordinary innings by any measure. He ran down the pitch to his second ball and belted the ball back over Stokes’s head — which brought a huge smile from the England captain — but then hardly played a stroke in anger after that until Gill had reached three figures.
Shoaib Bashir had held things well enough from the Football Stand End in unhelpful conditions, finding some drift and bounce, but had no answer when Pant, changing gear again, charged and hoisted a straight six. The new ball was taken and, to Woakes’s second ball with it, Pant aimed a slog-sweep which went for four off the toe-end of the bat to bring up his half-century.
Pant loves to discombobulate the opposition. He doesn’t always come off, but when he does he is dangerous: to the first ball of the last over of the day, with a man out in the deep, he charged at Woakes and heaved him over the leg-side for six, to finish a remarkable day for India with a statement six. India’s young captain and vice-captain walked off together and the present and future looked in very capable hands.
