London, July 15: Shubman Gill was “extremely proud” of the fight that his team put up after being down and out but rued the absence of one fifty partnership and Rishabh Pant’s first innings run-out in their 22-run defeat against England in the third Test at the Lord’s. Ravindra Jadeja fought gamely with a dogged unbeaten 61 off 181 balls and nearly took India home with Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj before the team got all out for 170.“Extremely proud it was as close a Test match as it can get, played over five days and comes down to the last session. I was pretty confident of our chances with plenty of batting left. We needed a couple of 50-run partnerships but we weren’t able to get that,” Gill said during the post-match prize distribution ceremony.
He did admit that had Pant not been run-out in the first innings, India could have got a 70 to 80-run lead and may not have to chase nearly 200 on a tricky fifth day track.
Asked if players are putting too much emphasis on personal milestones as KL Rahul admitted that he had a discussion with Pant about reaching his hundred before lunch, Gill said that they have had discussions.
“Actually it was an error of judgement as far as the run is concerned and that can happen. And if you look closely, it was KL bhai, who was running at the danger end.”
He also defended Ravindra Jadeja’s tactic of not going for big shots with two wickets left.
Asked if there was any message for him, Gill replied: “He is very experienced and there was no message sent. He batted brilliantly with the tail. It was the final hour (on day four), we could have applied ourselves better.
“Of 15 days of Test cricket, we dominated the maximum days but the sessions that were bad were so bad that we lost two games. The series scorecard won’t reflect how we have played,” he added.
