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Shubman Gill Becomes 3rd Captain After Bradman & Gavaskar To Score 4 Centuries In A Test Series

Shubman Gill Becomes 3rd Captain After Bradman & Gavaskar To Score 4 Centuries In A Test Series

News186 days ago
Gill is the second Indian captain to score four centuries in a Test series and overall the third in the history of Test cricket after Don Bradman and Sunil Gavaskar.
Shubman Gill was appointed as India's 37th Test captain on May 24, 2025, when the chief selector, Ajit Agarkar, announced India's squad for the five-match series against England. And in his first Test series as India captain, Gill equalled Don Bradman and Sunil Gavaskar's record of scoring four centuries in a Test series as captain. No other captain in the 148-year history of Test cricket has scored more than four centuries in a Test series.
Gill, who made his Test captaincy debut against England in Leeds on June 20, 2025, scored 147 runs in the first innings of the Leeds Test. In the second Test of the India-England series played at Edgbaston from July 2 to 6, Gill scored 269 runs in the first innings and 161 in the second.
Shubman Gill's scores in Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy
During the 1947-48 India-Australia Test series in Australia, Bradman played five matches and scored four centuries, whereas Gavaskar scored four centuries in six matches of the 1978-79 India-West Indies Test series at home.
Bradman's scores in 1947-48 Test series against India
VENUE DATES 1st Innings 2nd Innings
Brisbane Nov 28-Dec 4, 1947 185 —
Sydney Dec 12-18, 1947 13 —
Melbourne Jan 1-5, 1948 132 127*
Adelaide Jan 23-28, 1948 201 —
Gavaskar's scores in 1947-48 Test series against India
Cricketers for score most 100s in a Test series
The overall record of scoring the most centuries in a Test series is in the name of West Indies' batter Clyde Walcott. Walcott played five Tests against Australia in 1955 and scored 5 centuries in 10 innings.
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First Published:
July 27, 2025, 17:03 IST
News cricket Shubman Gill Becomes 3rd Captain After Bradman & Gavaskar To Score 4 Centuries In A Test Series
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Goofy and gritty, how Divya Deshmukh became India's golden girl
Goofy and gritty, how Divya Deshmukh became India's golden girl

Indian Express

time15 minutes ago

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Goofy and gritty, how Divya Deshmukh became India's golden girl

A long-lost clip of a Divya Deshmukh interview from seven years ago was excavated and made popular again by YouTube's algorithm over the last few days. 'This 12-year-old is the future of Indian women's chess' declares the video's headline like a soothsayer gone glassy-eyed staring into a crystal ball. In the video, Deshmukh is interviewed by ChessBase India, where she is asked if she has won any world championships yet. With the hint of a smile, Deshmukh starts rattling off her titles. A World and Asian Champion in the under-10 and under-12 age groups. National champion in under-7, under-9, and under-11. Occasionally while listing her achievements, she pauses, as if giving her mind time to catch its breath. 'That's enough, I think,' she says. The 12-year-old is then asked about her fighting skills on the chessboard, how she is not afraid of any opponent and told that if it's a high-stakes game, she inevitably ends up winning it. 'That may be true,' she says. Throughout a heady July, Deshmukh, now 19, summoned those fighting skills and faced off against veritable giants of the sport — World No 6 Zhu Jiner, veteran grandmaster Harika Dronavalli, former women's world champion Tan Zhongyi and, finally, Indian chess' original woman prodigy, Koneru Humpy — on her way to winning the FIDE Women's World Cup title. This, despite starting the event as only the 15th-best-rated player in the field. In winning the World Cup, she also became India's fourth woman to become a grandmaster. 'I think the younger me knew what she was talking about,' Deshmukh told FIDE, the international chess governing body, in an interview after winning the World Cup title when reminded about the interview from seven years ago. 'If you ask me that question today (about her fighting skills and how she is not afraid of any opponent), I would probably repeat my answer,' she said. That seven-year-old prophecy announced by the clickbaity headline of a YouTube video came true in Georgia, a country that has produced some of the world's earliest trailblazers of women's chess, like Nona Gaprindashvili and Maia Chiburdanidze. 'My turn,' she wrote on Instagram in a caption of a photo posing with the trophy. A post shared by Divya Deshmukh (@divyachess) In the last 13 months, the girl from Nagpur has become a world junior champion, helped the Indian women's team win the Chess Olympiad gold medal and now finally claimed a World Cup gold, while also becoming a grandmaster. What was remarkable about Deshmukh becoming a grandmaster was that, unlike the 87 Indians before her, she earned the title in a single tournament. In fact, before the World Cup started, Deshmukh hadn't earned any of the three norms a player needs to become a grandmaster. She came to Batumi hoping to collect one norm. 'My goals changed today,' she said in the FIDE interview. 'Time to find new goals.' 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Both events were humbling experiences for her: she lost eight out of 13 games at Wijk and had five defeats in nine games at Prague. 'These tournaments, all the struggles and being beaten left to right, I think that has definitely helped me to become what I am,' she said before adding: 'Playing in these events, there's a lot less pressure. I enjoy those tournaments more. They help me realise what my weaknesses are. When you play against opponents that are considerably stronger than you, you learn so much.' Women's chess is ruled by a ruthless, give-no-quarter ethos. That's why, unlike male players, you almost never see two women players sit and discuss the game to pick their opponent's mind once the match ends. Handshakes before games are actually just two sets of fingers making bare-minimum contact with the coiled tension of boxers touching gloves before a prizefight. There's no eye contact between opponents whatsoever. In this mix enters the endearingly goofy Deshmukh. 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Her bubbly, extroverted personality is the perfect foil for the assassin that she is on the chessboard. Talk to anyone in the sport who has known her, and they will praise her aggression on the board. 'If you look at the approach she played with Humpy, it was so aggressive. She tried to dominate Humpy in a way,' pointed out Kushager Krishnater, who despite being in Team Humpy as a second (an aide) since 2022, could not help but marvel at Deshmukh's ambition. 'If you look at Game 1 and Game 2 of the World Cup final, Divya was the one who was pressing in very slow positions even when there was no chance of a result. Even in the first game of the tie-break (after the two classical games ended in draws), she did that. You don't do it against somebody who is stronger than you! A player does this when they think that their opponent is weaker than you. If you look at Divya's reaction after the first classical game against Humpy ended in a draw, she was visibly a bit angry with herself. 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News18

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