India has made a rollicking start to the five-match series for the Tendulkar-Anderson Trophy. Because of the time difference, this is being written after the first day’s play in the opening Test match at Leeds. Shubman Gill, captaining for the first time, celebrated the occasion by scoring a classy century. He had also taken the important call to bat at No. 4, where some of the greatest Indian batters have played before and scored thousands of runs and won matches for India.

For someone who started his career by opening the batting for India, to go lower down the order is a big call and the young man has justified it with this century. It is never easy for someone who is used to going to bat at the start of the innings to wait his turn to bat, as I can say with my experience. That said, with his organised technique and a wide range of shots, he is perhaps best suited for the number where he can stabilise the innings if a couple of wickets fall early or take charge if the openers have given the team a good start. That’s exactly what he has done on the opening day after Yashasvi Jaiswal and KL Rahul gave the visitors just the platform they were looking for. Rahul, who was batting splendidly lost his wicket chasing a wide half-volley and Sai Sudharsan anxious to get off the mark also played at a delivery going down the leg-side to be caught brilliantly by the wicket-keeper. Jaiswal carried on when the skipper joined him and it was exhilarating batting from their swords as they cut, drove and pulled the English attack to all parts of the ground. The vice-captain, Rishabh Pant, joined the skipper at the fall of Jaiswal’s wicket and together they took India well past 350 which is just incredible for a team asked to bat first by the home team captain.

On the eve of the series, the ECB announced that it would be played for a new Trophy called the Anderson - Tendulkar Trophy.  With that decision, the Pataudi Trophy was given the goodbye.