Shubman Gill disturbed the lengths of New Zealand bowlers on a regular basis: Sanjay Bangar

The much-awaited World Test Championship (WTC) could finally see some action on the second day after the first day got washed out due to persistent rain. Kane Williamson won the toss and called the Indian batter to take on with the willow. It was all Rohit Sharma-Shubman Gill for the first hour of the game as they kept playing the fierce New Zealand pacers with all their might.

Gill and Sharma gave the desired start to India and it looked like at least one of them was going to fetch big. However, their show ended after some time as Sharma (34) was sent back by Kyle Jamieson and Gill was shown the way to stands by Neil Wagner. In the same light, former India batter and batting coach Sanjay Bangar opened up on how Indian openers ‘disturbed’ the length of NZ pacers during the initial hour of the game.

“It looked good for India purely because of the way both the batters applied themselves. They were proactive in their approach. They were reactive. They were not wanting to hang back and see how things goes. They were standing outside the crease.”

Sanjay Bangar gives his views on Shubman Gill

“At times, they were walking towards the bowlers, which was done by Shubman Gill on a regular basis. Just to disturb the lengths of the New Zealand bowler. I felt that they succeeded in that because they disturbed the lengths, New Zealand had to try out different field placements at times, which normally they would not have done. If India had stuck to a traditional approach, but India were proactive and hence they got the upper hand in the first hour,” said Bangar on Star Sports.

Talking about the match on day two, it went in a ‘stop-start’ manner due to the bad light. After Gill and Sharma went back, Cheteshwar Pujara came up to take a stand but even he went early without adding anything significant. Ajinkya Rahane and Virat Kohli are currently battling it out for India in the middle.