By Karan Agrawal 
India started their Champions Trophy campaign on a winning note as the Rohit Sharma-led side defeated Bangladesh by six wickets in their tournament opener courtesy of match-winning performances from Mohammed Shami and Shubman Gill, who took a fifer and scored an unbeaten century on their Champions Trophy debuts respectively. Chasing a target of 229 runs after restricting Bangladesh to a below-par total of 228, India got off to a solid start courtesy of a 69-run partnership for the first wicket between Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill. The duo started cautiously as the Bangladeshi bowlers bowled some good balls in the first five overs, but once the batters got an idea about the pace of the wicket, they started chancing their arms and made full use of the first powerplay.
The Start
Rohit, in particular, was the most aggressive of the two as he took a liking to Bangladesh’s fast bowling spearhead, Mustafizur Rahaman, by hitting him for fours on consecutive deliveries. Shubman Gill, on the other hand, targeted certain deliveries in an over to keep the scoring rate in check and kept rotating the strike to let Rohit Sharma take the aggressive route at the other end. The boundary-hitting spree was halted to a great extent when Rohit Sharma was dismissed in the last over of the first powerplay as Bangladesh started applying pressure through their spinners and picked up crucial wickets in the middle overs to reduce India to 144/4.
The Innings
Shubman Gill stood firm at one end amidst the tricky situation that India found themselves in and guided the team to a win by scoring a memorable century along with KL Rahul. The right-hander won the Player of the Match award for his match-winning century. When asked whether it was one of his most satisfying innings, Gill said, “Definitely one of the most satisfying innings that I have played and my first century in ICC events. Very satisfying and very happy with the way I performed.”
The Plan
Talking about the challenges he faced while batting in the middle, Shubman Gill said that he and Rohit found it difficult to play the cut shot, so they decided to use their feet against the fast bowlers. In the words of Gill, “When me and Rohit bhai went out there, we thought cutting the ball wasn’t easy because the balls which were outside the off-stump weren’t coming onto the bat that nicely. So I thought of using my feet to even the fast bowlers and tried to go over the circle,” he said.
The Effort
“When the spinners came on, me and Virat bhai were talking in the middle that it’s not easy to score singles off the front foot, so we’ll try to score singles off the back foot. And it’s not easy to hit down the ground, so we just keep rotating the strike,” Gill added. When asked whether it was a deliberate effort to play till the end, Gill said, “At one point, there was a bit of pressure on us. The message was sent from outside that I have to try to bat till the end, and that’s what I tried to do.”