Gill reached 3,000 Test runs off an outside edge, and only three Indians got there younger
India’s captain went to 3,000 Test runs with a boundary off the edge on the opening morning in Colombo. At 26 years and 349 days, he is the fourth-youngest India batter to the mark.
Aug 23, 2026
Shubman Gill needed seven runs when he walked out at the Sinhalese Sports Club on Sunday morning, and he got the last four of them off the edge of the bat. A Keshara Nuwantha delivery took the outside edge in the 23rd over and ran away for four, and India’s captain had 3,000 Test runs.
Three Indians have got there younger
Gill was 26 years and 349 days old when he reached the mark, which makes him the fourth-youngest India batter to 3,000 Test runs. Sachin Tendulkar remains a long way clear of everyone at 23 years and 228 days. Virender Sehwag got there at 26 years and 157 days, Dilip Vengsarkar at 26 years and 263 days, and Gill is now a few months behind both of them on that list.
It took him 43 Tests. Set that against the two names directly above him and the shape of his career becomes clearer: Sehwag and Vengsarkar were both opening or top-order batters who played a great deal of cricket young, and Gill has spent large parts of the same age window captaining India in three formats.
Most of the last year has been the captain’s
Gill took over the Test side in 2025 after Rohit Sharma retired from the format, and the first thing he did with the job was score 754 runs in a single series in England. Four of those innings were hundreds. One of them was 269 at Edgbaston, the highest score any India captain has made in a Test, past Virat Kohli’s unbeaten 254.
That series is doing a lot of work in this milestone. Gill had five hundreds and an average in the mid-thirties from his first 32 Tests, which is a decent record and not a spectacular one. Then he made 754 runs at 75.40 in five matches in England, and the career average and the run tally both moved at once.
India’s morning in Colombo
Gill won the toss and batted, which on an SSC surface is the decision almost everyone makes. He came in after Yashasvi Jaiswal was dismissed, and at lunch India were 88 for 2 from 25 overs, with Devdutt Padikkal on 13 and Gill on 11.
India lead the series 1-0 after winning the opening Test at Galle by 165 runs, where Manav Suthar took ten wickets in the match and Devdutt Padikkal scored a century. Saransh Jain, the 33-year-old off-spinner from Madhya Pradesh, was handed his India cap before play in Colombo with Kuldeep Yadav missing out.