New Delhi, Nov 29 (IANS) India top-order batter Shubman Gill made a return to batting at the team’s practice session in Canberra on Friday after a left thumb injury kept him out of the first Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test at Perth.

Ahead of India playing a two-day warm-up match against Prime Minister’s XI at the Manuka Oval on Saturday and Sunday, Gill joined the batting session by facing the throwdowns initially.

After 30 minutes of facing it, he faced Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, and Yash Dayal for a short while, which showed the first signs of Gill making a possible return to the second pink-ball Test at the Adelaide Oval, starting on December 6.

“It was my first day (of practising after injury). I was just trying to get a feel, to be honest, see how the injury is reacting, if there is any kind of jardness or soreness with me playing. But it actually went much better than I and Kamlesh bhai (Jain, Indian team physio) expected, and I'm very happy with that,” said Gill in a video posted by the BCCI on their ‘X’ account.

In his absence, Devdutt Padikkal was added to the squad from the India ‘A’ side and made scores of 0 and 25 as India won by 295 runs to go 1-0 up in the five-match series. “Any ball, when it hits the bat, especially the middle of the bat, and the feeling that you get is what I play for. When I got to know about my injury for the first couple of days, I was quite low, a bit disappointed.”

“Perth is the only venue where I haven't played when we came the last time. I was looking forward to playing there as it's such an iconic venue. But the way we played that game, and by the end of it, I was very happy with the way that we played and we won the game,” added Gill.

Even as Gill’s return made for a positive move, Rohit Sharma, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Virat Kohli went through their batting practice against the pink ball. The weather forecast for day one of the two-day practice game shows heavy rainfall, which means India are in danger of losing out on one day of pink-ball acclimatization. India have only played four pink-ball Test matches so far, the last of which took place in March 2022 against Sri Lanka in Bengaluru.

Courtesy Media Group: IANS