Birmingham: India's dominance in the second Test against England at Edgbaston reached staggering proportions today, as skipper Shubman Gill scripted history with a stunning match aggregate of 430 runs, propelling India to a colossal 1014 runs across two innings — their highest-ever match total in Test cricket.
Gill, leading India in just his second match as Test captain, delivered a performance for the ages. After a marathon 269 in the first innings, he returned unbeaten on 161 in the second, becoming only the second batsman in Test history to aggregate over 430 runs in a single match. The only man ahead of him is England's Graham Gooch, who amassed 456 runs against India at Lord’s in 1990. Gill now surpasses legends like Brian Lara, Mark Taylor, and Kumar Sangakkara, etching his name alongside the very best.
For India, the total of 1014 runs shattered their previous record of 916 in Sydney during the 2003-04 series. It now stands as the fourth-highest team aggregate in the history of Test cricket, underlining the scale of India's dominance in this contest.
But it wasn't just the volume of runs that stood out — it was the rarity of Gill’s feat. He became only the ninth batsman in the long history of the game to register a double hundred and a hundred in the same match. For India, only Sunil Gavaskar had managed that previously, back in 1971. Gill’s run-making also saw him become the second batsman, after Allan Border in 1980, to record 150-plus scores in both innings of a Test.
His partnerships across the innings were equally pivotal. He was involved in four century stands in the match — an accomplishment achieved by only four other batsmen in Test history. Two of those came in tandem with Ravindra Jadeja, as the duo became just the fourth batting pair to add 150 or more runs together in both innings of a Test.
Gill’s audacious shot-making included 11 sixes, putting him third among Indians with the most sixes in a Test match, behind Rohit Sharma and Yashasvi Jaiswal. His calm command of the innings, aggressive yet precise strokeplay, and unrelenting hunger for runs have redefined what it means to lead from the front.
With 585 runs in the series already, Gill has also broken the record for the most runs by an Indian captain in his debut series, eclipsing Virat Kohli’s 449 in Australia in 2014-15. That Gill now stands level with Kohli in another category — scoring three centuries in his first two Tests as captain — is a testament to the magnitude of his achievement.
India, meanwhile, created history by becoming only the fourth team to cross 400 in both innings of a Test match, having previously done so only thrice before — against Pakistan in 2004, Sri Lanka in 2009, and England in 2024.
As England stared at a mountain on Day 4, Edgbaston bore witness not just to a Test match, but to a performance that will live in Indian cricket’s folklore. Shubman Gill, still early in his captaincy career, has announced himself not with words, but with a bat that has scorched its place in history.
