India, July 23 -- Shubman Gill's running feud with England seemed to work against the Indian captain again in Manchester, as he failed to make a mark with the bat in the first innings of the fourth Test. It was during that heated passage of play in the final minutes of Day 3, marked by Gill's confrontation with Zak Crawley over deliberate time-wasting and England's delayed arrival for the start of the second innings, that the tone was set.

Ahead of the fourth Test, Gill doubled down in a fiery press conference, accusing England of breaching the "spirit of cricket," a remark that drew both support and backlash. That off-field eruption now appears to be seeping into his on-field form, as Gill cut a visibly edgy figure from the moment he wa...