Normally it has been seen that teams collapse chasing small targets and wickets keep falling at regular intervals as the teams do not give up the habit of batting that suits the format of T-20 cricket. But nothing like that happened at Abu Dhabi on Saturday. Chasing an easy target set up by Sunrisers Hyderabad, Shubman Gill during his 70 runs’ mature innings displayed a good temperament and shot selection, and kept on playing judiciously till the victory target was achieved.
Shubman smashed every bowler’s weak ball beyond the boundary. He flicked a ball from Bhuvaneshwar, then hit a six over long-on off Khaleel Ahmed, again played cut and cover drive off Khaleel, smashed a boundary over longleg off Afghanistan’s star leg spinner Rashid Khan and also a strong shot over the head of the bowler. In this innings, his style was not, of course, explosive, but he played according to the merit of the ball and displayed the immense potential that he has.
In fact, Shubman Gill’s style of game is more suitable for test and one day matches. He can build up and consolidate the innings quite well. If NCA director Rahul Dravid has advised some cricketers in IPL to play smart, it means he is advising to avoid injury and play the shots which are not always the ones that are hit in T-20 format of cricket. Dravid has been of the opinion right from the beginning that many times there is a risk of cricketers’ game getting affected due to such shots. Shubman had visited New Zealand on behalf of India A this year where he had made 80 plus runs in an innings against ‘New Zealand A’ and hit double century in the second innings. He also hit one century in another match.
He has already made a double century against ‘West Indies A’. He has a reputation of being the youngest player to have hit ‘first class’ double century. He has hit century against a strong Vidarbha team in Ranji Trophy and proved that he is no longer a junior cricketer. He has gained maturity in his game. Earlier, Shubman has achieved BCCI’s best junior player award on two occasions. Who can forget his tremendous innings in the U-19 world cup two years ago against Pakistan? He did get included in the national team during the New Zealand and South Africa tour, but he could not be accommodated in playing XI. He did get a chance to play in two one-day matches against New Zealand last year but he could not take advantage of the opportunity.
Shubman’s average of first class cricket is around 75 runs. But the place for opener is not vacant in Team India at present. Neither in Tests nor in one day. Rohit Sharma has captured the place in Test and K.L. Rahul has done it in One Day team and the competition has become stiff with both the players occupying the positions of openers. Like Shikhar Dhawan and Mayank Agarwal who got a chance as an opener quite late, Shubman is in the same situation. Let’s hope that the wait is not long for him to get a regular place in Team India and he maintains consistency in his game like this.
