At the start of Day 3, India’s opening batsmen Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill were in an attacking frame of mind, similar to the final 10 overs of Day 2. They didn’t hold back from playing big shots against Mitchell Starc, even when he bowled short. Gill even made room, exposing his stumps and flat-batted Starc straight down the ground.
On the other hand, Rohit used his favorite pull shot to counter Starc’s short-pitched deliveries from over the wicket, hitting him for a four and a huge six in the 15th over. India’s aggressive approach made it challenging for Starc to continue, and Steve Smith had to bring in left-arm spinner Matthew Kuhnemann from Starc’s end.
As Starc was conceding a flurry of boundaries, Nathan Lyon kept things tight from the other end, putting pressure on the Indian opening pair of Rohit Sharma and Shubman Gill. Lyon successfully kept Gill from scoring any boundaries and even managed to deceive him a few times with his changes in pace and length. Meanwhile, Rohit appeared comfortable while defending Lyon’s off-spin deliveries on the front foot.
The captain of the Indian cricket team also reached the milestone of scoring 17000 international runs and appeared to be on course for a substantial score. He was the sole Indian batsman to have hit a century in the current Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
In the first Test at Nagpur, he achieved this feat under considerably challenging conditions. In comparison to that pitch, the Ahmedabad surface was much more conducive to batting and allowed for free-flowing strokes.
Rohit’s main concern was to avoid getting impatient. In the 21st over’s final delivery, Kuhnemann delivered a slightly short-pitched ball that slowed down on the pitch and took longer to reach Rohit. Despite Rohit’s fluent batting up until then, he could not control his bat speed. He went through with his backfoot punch and ended up giving a straightforward catch to Marnus Labuschagne in short cover.