Shubman Gill made an unbeaten 101 runs as India beat Bangladesh in their opening game of the Champions Trophy to win by six wickets. Batting first, Najmul Shanto’s side struggled heavily, going down to 35 for five at one juncture. However, Towhid Hridoy and Jaker Ali came together to form an incredible partnership of 154 runs to allow the Bangla Tigers to set a target of 228 in their first innings.
Rohit Sharma, captain of India, opened the innings with a series of boundaries. In contrast, Gill took a while to settle down. As soon as Rohit was out for 41 runs, Virat Kohli came to the middle, and that was when the youngster started changing his gears. However, two quick wickets of Kohli and Shreyas Iyer forced him to adjust his strategy. His century did come, after all, in 125 deliveries.
This was Gill’s slowest ton in ODIs but, overall, it ranks joint third in terms of slowness among all centuries ever clocked by an Indian in the format since 2010. India’s century of 128 deliveries against Bangladesh in 2012 is that country record since 2010. Rosen was second with his century against South Africa in 2019, which was followed by Manoj Tiwary’s knock against Sri Lanka and Gill’s against Bangladesh.
Yet Gill also made history, taking the fewest innings to score eight centuries by any Indian in ODI cricket. The 25-year-old was able to achieve this 51 innings at the end of reaching eight tons while Shikhar Dhawan came in second with 57.
Gill was awarded Player of the Match for his magical century. Speaking of the knock, the young lad mentioned that it was among his most satisfying knocks and expressed happiness in scoring his first century in ICC tournaments
