Gill, Pant, and Ashwin dominate day three in Chepauk

When Bangladesh batted, the pitch was still flat, but R Ashwin’s long overdue oversaw India’s dominance in the game. Three low catches of differing degrees of difficulty were credited to the bowlers by the fielders.

On the third day of the Chennai Test, Rishabh Pant scored an emotional sixth century, Shubman Gill made a calm fifth, and the Indian bowlers and fielders performed admirably under the difficult circumstances, taking four wickets in the second innings. With two and a half days left in the Test, Bangladesh was 357 short of the 515 goal that they had set for themselves following an assertive declaration.

These were the best batting conditions of the match, with the pitch not breaking up yet and the average seam movement decreasing from 1.3 degrees on day one to 0.4 degrees on day three. India scored 206 runs on day three with just 16 incorrect shots in 41 overs, despite their attacking strategy to set up the declaration.

Both aggressive hitters Gill and Pant, who were accustomed to counterattacking, understood that they were the only ones who could pull themselves out of the situation and lowered their heads for heavy blows. Once inside, they leapt out of the crease to hit sixes while continuing to show respect for good balls. In his 26th Test match, Gill smashed four sixes off of Mehidy Hasan Miraz, who bowled 25 of India’s 64 second-inning overs.

Pant, who has only played 34 Tests, smashed four sixes of his own to reach 59, the seventh-highest score for India, after taking a punt on Shakib Al Hasan’s left-arm spin. With 85 sixes so far in 2024, India is just five away from shattering the record for the most sixes by a team in a calendar year.

More spectacular was what the two accomplished outside of the sixes. In contrast to Yashasvi Jaiswal and Rohit Sharma, who on the second evening simply attempted to force their will on the bowling, these two respected the bowling from the start of the day and were happy to defend for a long without being concerned about close-in fielders and edges. Nobody attempted to press the matter until the seventh over of the day, when Gill did it masterfully by hitting two sixes over wide long-on.

Ten minutes before lunch, Pant took even longer to start making shots, none better than the ramp-sweep off Hasan Mahmud for a six over fine leg, as he was especially cautious not to give anything away after an easy dismissal in the first innings. Before noon, Gill joined in the acceleration, implying that the announcement might occur sooner rather than later.

Seven minutes before the half, Pant made a drive for faster runs with a skier, but skipper Najmul Hossain Shanto stopped it. Even so, Pant raised the stakes for the race to the hundred by hitting two fours in the last over before the interval.

Third day of the first Test between India and Bangladesh, September 21, 2024, in Chennai, saw Najmul Hossain Shanto reach fifty from fifty balls.

After lunch, Pant reached his hundred in just 118 balls by using his signature flip behind the square to go past both the quicks and the spinners. After KL Rahul produced a few of elegant inside-out drives and Gill reached the target more composedly in 161 balls, the declaration gave Bangladesh an hour to bat until tea.

With gusto, Zakir Hasan struck early on, striking Mohammed Siraj with a flipped six in addition to driving both off the front and back foot. He and Shadman Islam punished every mistake in length by keeping an eye out for runs since the ball wasn’t doing much.

But as soon as Ashwin entered the game, he began to cause trouble, taking the inside edge in one place and hitting the bat’s sticker in another.

He and Jasprit Bumrah produced three tight overs after tea. Zakar hit a bold drive to a ball that was not nearly full enough in the fourth over, and Jaiswal finished his innings with a breathtaking catch at gully, low to his left and behind him.

Ashwin had to work hard to earn his wickets due to the conditions. He was even hit for four sixes, which is the most runs he has ever given up in an innings. Still, he continued to plug away, frequently reducing his speed to call for help from the surface. He hadn’t planned on getting his first wicket when Shadman returned to try to play a length ball behind square. It took his leading edge for a low catch for Gill at short midwicket because it wasn’t short enough.

Then, in order to get rid of Mominul Haque, who never looked at home, Ashwin created a beauty. He had to play the line because of the drift, and his turn was just sharp enough to miss the off stump but not the edge. With a six to Ashwin and a mid-on single to Rahul, Mushfiqur Rahim was like a cat on a hit tin roof.

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Even less at ease, Shakib Al Hasan was saved from disaster when poor lighting brought the play to an early close. Captain Najmul batted coolly and rapidly in the face of all of this, finishing the day with 51 off 60.