Shubman Gill was spotted hilariously sledging the opposition batters during Day 1 of the third Test of the ongoing five-match series between England and India at Lord’s. Fielding in the slip cordon, he could be seen intimidating the duo of Ollie Pope and Joe Root that they were not living up to the expectations of Bazball and instead opting to play a traditional, boring brand of cricket.
Gill’s sledging was caught on-mic during one of Jasprit Bumrah’s overs. Pope had left a delivery outside the off stump for the wicketkeeper to collect. Gill kept things lively with his chirping from the slips and took a sly dig at the dull showing with the bat in terms of the net run rate.
“No more entertaining cricket, lads. Welcome to boring Test cricket,” the Indian skipper was caught saying on air.
Speaking of the current match, the opening session of the game belonged to India after Nitish Kumar Reddy struck twice in his first over to get rid of Ben Duckett (23 off 40) and Zak Crawley (18 off 43). The hosts got to 83/2 in 25 overs.
The pair of Pope and Root went into Lunch unscathed. However, the former had to walk back on the first ball of the third session for 44 off 104. The breakthrough was provided by Ravindra Jadeja with substitute keeper Dhruv Jurel snapping up the opportunity.
A few overs later, Harry Brook had to depart after inside-edging a Jasprit Bumrah delivery onto the stumps. At the time of writing, England are 196 for the loss of four wickets after 62 overs with Root still batting skipper Ben Stokes.
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