Shubman Gill seems only half angry about hitting Test hundreds

3 minute read

Whenever there’s a new Test captain, it’s impossible to suppress comparisons with their predecessors. Rohit Sharma never seemed too angry about hitting hundreds (who knows, he may even have enjoyed them). But Virat Kohli? Man, he was absolutely bloody furious about reaching three figures. The early signs are that Shubman Gill can get pretty cross about it too – albeit not perhaps fully livid.

We’re not even going to bother including an image of one of Rohit’s hundred celebrations because they were typically such non-events. Just imagine Rohit Sharma holding his bat in the air with his normal face. Maybe he’d smile at some point, but that would only ever seem coincidental rather than a specific reaction to what he’d achieved.

Kohli though… he tended to do something like this:

Trawling through YouTube, there were a couple where he smiled, but rage was very much his default reaction to hitting a hundred.

Here’s an early one, just to further illustrate that.

A word of advice: Do NOT spill this guy’s pint.

The actual hitting of hundreds is really not that important for a captain, except insofar as it provides an opportunity to send a message to your team about how you want them to go about things.

Rohit told his team to just sort of carry on. “There’s nothing much to worry about here really. Let’s not get too het about anything, okay?”

Kohli’s message was more: “Did one of their guys just say something about your sister? I’m pretty sure he did. Yeah, he definitely did. We have to go and fuck these guys up RIGHT NOW.”

Early signs are that Gill seems to be a little more Kohli than Rohit.

Here’s how he reacted to hitting a hundred in the first Test.

And here’s how he reacted to hitting a hundred in the second Test.

Only the more you look at it, the more it seems a qualified anger.

The bottom half of Gill’s face knows what it’s doing and what it’s doing is a full bestial roar.

The top half though? Cover up Kohli’s mouth with your hand and his eyes are, if anything, even more furious than what you’ve concealed. Cover up Gill’s mouth and what you’re left with is a lot more ambiguous.

Just try it.

What’s the top half of his head feeling in the first one? Scepticism maybe?

And in the second one? Concern? Nervousness? As unlikely as it sounds, there’s perhaps even a soupcon of fear in the mix.

The message to the team is what then?

“Come on! Let’s do this! Take no prisoners! Although are we forgetting something? I feel like we’re forgetting something. What exactly are we forgetting here?”

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