IND vs ENG: Broken but beautiful - How Shubman Gill got his century-hitting bat fixed before the first Test

Shubman Gill's Century at Headingley: A Tale of a Repaired Bat

Shubman Gill (right) scored century at Headingley with a repaired bat. (Screengrabs)

Shubman Gill delivered a spectacular performance at Headingley Cricket Ground, scoring an unbeaten 127 on the first day of the Test match between India and England.

The Indian captain's century, achieved in the final session, marked a memorable beginning to his captaincy. This feat places Gill among an esteemed group of Indian cricketers – Vijay Hazare, Sunil Gavaskar, Dilip Vengsarkar, and Virat Kohli – who have scored centuries in their debut Test as captain.

What makes this century even more remarkable is that Gill played it with a bat that he had damaged during India's intra-squad match at Beckenham, Kent. Following the incident, India’s new Test captain contacted Cricfix_batservices, a bat repair company located in Kent.

The company shared a video on Instagram detailing the damage to Shubman Gill's bat and the repair process.

In the video, the shop's owner explains, "That's right, today we're repairing a bat from India captain Shubman Gill. We received a text saying that Shubman had damaged the toe of one of his bats during a training session, and he needed us to come and pick it up and sort it out ahead of the Test match."

He further elaborated, "As you can see, it looks like he had to dig out a nasty yorker during training, and it left this nasty indentation and a couple of splits that we needed to fix."

The repair involved gluing the cracks and inserting a wedge into the toe to flatten the damaged area. "We made sure to glue up all the cracks and then apply a small wedge into the toe, which pushed up the damaged area and made the toe nice and flat again."

The owner emphasized that they lightly sanded the bat to preserve its original quality, as it was one of Shubman's favorites. "Then we lightly sanded the bat, as it's one of Shubman's favourites and he didn't want to affect the ping in any way."

The final steps included buffing and polishing the bat, adding thread binding to reinforce the toe, and applying a fabric facing at Gill's request. "Coming to the end of the repair, we gave the bat a buff and polish to make it look nice and shiny. Shubman also asked us to apply some thread binding to the toe to keep the weak area tight, and he opted for a fabric facing, so we applied that as well."

The company concluded, "Here's the finished bat, looking brand new once again — toe repair all sorted. It was really cool to see him using it again in training the next day. I'm wishing him all the best for the series ahead."

A fan commented on the repair's success, "Looks like it's working out for him! 127*," to which the owner responded, "Not sure whether to be happy or not 😄."

India resumed Day 2 at 359 for 3, with vice-captain Rishabh Pant batting on 65 alongside Gill.