Musheer Khan taunts Shubman Gill, outperforms India's top bowlers with impressive innings

Musheer Khan exemplifies the growth in confidence that comes with accumulating runs. Despite a shaky start on day 1 of the Duleep Trophy match against India A at the Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru, the 19-year-old India B batter gained momentum as wickets fell around him, eventually constructing a monumental innings that propelled his team into a favorable position.

At lunch on day 2, Musheer had grown so much in confidence that he not only played lofted strokes and took other attacking options but also teased India A bowlers. One of the salient features of his batting has been his tactic of walking down to the fast bowlers. He did the same on Friday. The only difference was that, this time, he made cheeky gestures at the likes of Avesh Khan and Akash Deep to throw the ball at the stumps when he was outside the crease.

Musheer's audacity left India A captain Shubman Gill frustrated, who was seen asking keeper Dhruv Jurel to spring into action and inflict a run out.

Gill's reaction may appear to be a direct reaction to Musheer's tease, but many other factors contributed to Gill losing his cool. The foremost one was India B's recovery. They were 94/7 at one stage, and since then, the India A bowlers have failed to separate Musheer and Navdeep Saini. The duo put together a 205-run partnership for the eighth wicket, taking India B close to 300.

Musheer, who resumed at 105, smashed 181, while Saini held his end with some solid technique. There were multiple occasions when India A bowlers came close to get Musheer out but on each occasion, the DRS saved him. Musheer was in fact given out caught twice by the on-field umpire but the decision was reversed as the Mumbai batter opted for DRS.

Akash Deep, Avesh Khan, Khaleel Ahmed, Kuldeep Yadav and Shivam Dube toiled hard for no success in the morning session. Musheer played some attacking strokes off the backfoot, one of them was pull off for six. Immediately after getting a caught-behind decision against him overturned, Musheer deposited spinner Riyan Parag deep into the stands for easily the biggest six of the match so far.

Musheer, who is in his Duleep Trophy debut, hit five sixes and 16 boundaries in his 375-ball stay in the middle. Kuldeep Yadav finally dismissed him after he tried to hit the India left-arm spinner for the second six of the over in the post-lunch session.

“I wanted to play as many balls as possible without thinking too much about runs. I wanted to bat the whole day, and I was taking it session by session. The ball was swinging and cutting when I came to bat,” Musheer said in the post-day press meet. “So, I was trying to play the ball as close to my body as possible, and was looking to avoid those risky shots. I knew runs would eventually come,” he added.