Gill, Jadeja extend India’s advantage at lunch, visitors reach 419/6

Birmingham: Shubman Gill crossed 150 for the first time in his career while Ravindra Jadeja made a fine 89, pushing India to 419 for six at lunch on day two of the second Test against England here on Thursday.

The England pacers were not able to extract much from the surface as Gill (168 batting off 288 balls) and Jadeja (89 off 137) made most of the ideal batting conditions with a 203-run stand off 279 balls.

Resuming the day from 310 for five, India added 109 runs to the total in 25 overs.

The Gill-led side would aim to press home the advantage in the second session and not allow England to bounce back to the contest like they did in Leeds.

With no help from the pitch, England had resorted to the short ball plan against Gill and Jadeja but that did not work for a major part of the morning session.

Josh Tongue finally got the much-needed breakthrough late in the session with a short ball that Jadeja could not control to be caught by wicket-keeper Jamie Smith.

Amid bright sunshine at Edgbaston, Jadeja resumed his innings with a crisp back-foot punch through the cover and a cut off Ben Stokes.

Gill got his first boundary of the day through the third man region before cover driving Chris Woakes.

It was surprising to see Gill play the reverse sweep off spinner Shoaib Bashir.

Later in the session, Gill also swept Bashir for a six behind square. Jadeja too got into the act and stepped out to smash Bashir for a maximum over mid on.

Stokes set an interesting field when Washington Sundar joined Gill in the middle, employing a leg slip and two close in fielders on the leg-side.

The extra bounce that Tongue was able to generate posed an immediate threat to Sundar.