England vs India: Supreme Gill and entertainer Pant gorge on English generosity

If you invite guests into your home, prepare a feast of many courses, and pour hock into silver goblets, don’t be surprised if they take their time to leave.

England, generous hosts at a sun-drenched Headingley, which turned cloudy on the longest day of the year, must now clear the table. It may take them all summer.

Indian superiority, triggered by Ben Stokes’s eagerness to see the tourists bat first, have left them picking crumbs from the wheel of Stilton, and scooping dregs of port. It was a feast all right, and England have been the waiters: splendidly attired, well-mannered, and until Ben Duckett put bat to ball yesterday, subservient.

What terrific fun it has been! Headingley, one of the cradles of cricket, has seen everything. Yet this famous meadow has not often witnessed innings as graceful as those by Yashavi Jaiswal and Shubman Gill.

This was batsmanship of a high order. More specifically, Indian batsmanship; one of the most handsome books in sport’s vast library. In every good book there are footnotes, and Rishabh Pant claimed authorship with a third century, of wilful eccentricity.

One of these days, and we may not have long to wait, he will arrive at the crease on a penny farthing, wearing a red nose instead of a helmet.

He’s an entertainer, though his manner owes more to the Big Top than Ranji. “Cannons, disguised as flowers”, Schumann called Chopin’s piano music. In Jaiswal and Gill the ­spectators saw two flower children – the cheeky new bug, and the ­captain enjoying his first match as leader.

How well they played, combining the natural gift of children with the ­wisdom of elders. Roses, roses all the way. One century was phosphorescent, the other merely magnificent. For the man who invited them to reveal their class, however, the chef’s toque was transformed into a dunce’s cap, which he flung aside when he had the ball.

Stokes has the heart of a lion, and his four wickets, spread across two days of hostility, bought his team respectability, when the players were staring into the abyss. Still, conceding 471 when you have told the other lot to strap on their pads cannot be considered a successful ploy.

Jaiswal has burst into Tests like all the fun in the world, not that many bowlers are chortling. His inventory reveals two double-centuries against England in India, a century on debut in Australia, and now this bejewelled hundred, ended when Stokes bent his off stump with a snorter. Anybody who backed that trifecta might now be looking at castles in Spain.

The left-hander’s instrument is tuned to a different pitch, and it makes a glorious sound. Cramps in his forearms held him back rather more than England’s toothless bowling. Chris Woakes, such a willing trier, struggled to challenge the batsmen, and conceded a century of his own.

Pant is more of a merry piper. When he launches into those sweep-pull-slogs, which elicit hoots of laughter, he resembles a man shovelling snow into a neighbour’s garden. He hit six sixes, par for an innings of this length, and celebrated his century, achieved with the fourth of those hits, by turning a somersault, as Sir Leonard Hutton used to do.

It was Pant’s seventh Test century, and his second since the car crash two and a half years ago which turned his right knee inside out, and almost ended his mortal innings. Spared, and restored, he won’t be pushing too many balls back to the bowler. And when he does, it will be with the ­exaggerated respect that adds another layer to his comic turn.

But the best innings, and the most significant, belonged to Gill. It was important that he left a mark on this match. As captain of India he ­occupies a professor’s chair in the game’s college of knowledge, and it was clear from the first ball that he considers Test cricket a prize worth fighting for. Those first 30 runs were probably his finest.

Virat “King” Kohli, who venerated the longer form, appears to have left his team a worthy successor, for Gill’s 147 was an innings of conviction.

“You put us in,” every stroke reminded Stokes, “and you must now bowl us out. I shan’t help you.” The sun was dipping when he picked up Shoaib Bashir to deep midwicket, where Josh Tongue was the catcher, and after he went the innings collapsed, seven wickets falling for 41.

Tongue, granted the chance to finish the innings, duly did so, ending up with as many wickets as Stokes. It was a deceptive performance. England have much thinking to do about the composition of their attack, and time’s arrow is merciless.

Three centuries, and three ducks. Sai Sudharsan, on debut, and Karun Nair, back in favour after eight fallow years, failed to notch a run between them. Nair, intercepted one-handed at short extra cover by a leaping Ollie Pope, provided one of the moments of the day. It was quite a catch.

There was time, after a brief rain delay, for Zak Crawley to fail, and he obliged, though he was unlucky. Facing the first over, from Jasprit Bumrah, he was confounded by a ball that left him off the pitch, the edge flying to slip. Off he trudged, looking forlorn as Peter Grimes in his fisherman’s hut, waiting for the sea to devour him.

As Duckett and Pope took the fight to India, putting on 122 for the second wicket, the crowd rallied. This has been a moderate Headingley experience in terms of emotional attachment, and none the worse for that. The ground has been renewed impressively in recent years, with good views from all areas. Yorkshire have endured a terrible time of it in the last decade, and the blame does not lie on one side. They deserve a good Test, and they are getting one.

Stokes, alone as captains are, must now bat as well as he bowled. And if he thought it would do any good he’d stand on the rock where Moses stood.

Photograph by Clive Mason/Getty Images