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In Indian cricket, a glorious tradition of producing that world-conquering batter – armed with the perfect blend of technique and temperament, talent and toil – has been robust for the last five decades.
The baton has seamlessly passed from Sunil Gavaskar in the 1970s and 80s to Sachin Tendulkar in the following two decades to Virat Kohli thereafter. When Tendulkar emerged as a shy 16-year-old who literally relied on his bat to do all the talking, Gavaskar was two years into retirement. The Kohli-Tendulkar relationship materialised in 2008 when the maestro was still racking up runs for India. Kohli grew in Tendulkar’s shadow, absorbed the best practices, spent valuable time together in the middle, and was fully prepared for the badge of the best batter by the time Tendulkar strolled into the sunset in 2013.
Kohli is now at the other end of the spectrum, and the baton, though not yet needing to be handed over, seems to be at an arm’s length for Shubman Gill. The 24-year-old fits the profile – a top-order batter, elegance personified, and an insatiable hunger for big hundreds. It’s an array of attributes that immediately draws attention, especially for a populace always yearning to latch onto a young batting superstar.
And his deeds show he’s deserving of it. This year, in particular, he’s been sensational: 1,230 runs in 20 matches at an average of 72.35 and a strike rate of 105.03. Five of these matches have yielded hundreds, one of them a domineering double ton against New Zealand. Nobody else has even breached the 1000-run mark in ODIs this year yet.
It’s the sort of run that propels you onto the path of greatness. Off the field, it helps strike lucrative endorsements and become a popular face on billboards and on the front of magazine covers.
“Next star nahi. Star toh woh already hai (He is already a star),” Yuvraj Singh, who was Player of the Tournament in the 2011 World Cup, said of the youngster in an interview. “He is, right now, fearless. He is in good form. He can be the game changer. He can break the shackles. When somebody is fearless and in good form, he is definitely in a good position to win games for India. That’s what I am looking for from him.”
That Gill is attracting the arc lights was perhaps just as inevitable as night following day. Hark back to his early teens and he was already making waves in age-group cricket for Punjab, like the time when he slammed an unbeaten double ton on his U-16 debut in the Vijay Merchant Trophy.
The transition to the higher levels was swift and seamless, so much so that he was talked about as an India prospect when he played the U-19 World Cup in New Zealand in 2018. It bore fruition, with Gill making his ODI debut less than a year after finishing as India’s highest run-getter in their U-19 World Cup triumph.
Comparison in sport may be irritable, but it is also irresistible. So, there are parallels that can be drawn with Kohli’s own rise in the second half of the 2000s. Having led India to victory in the U-19 World Cup in 2008, he made his India ODI debut the same year. By the time the 2011 World Cup came around, he had established himself amid a galaxy of superstars after an imperious run in ODIs leading up to the event. Like Kohli in his early years, Gill is also finding his feet in Tests.
“Nobody likes to draw parallels. But obviously, he gets inspired by Virat, Rohit (Sharma), Yuvraj and all of the above,” said Abhishek Nayar, the assistant coach of Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), where Gill spent four seasons. “I am pretty sure he has drawn something from each individual to create his own individuality. I don’t want to compare him to anyone. He’s a very smart kid. So, he will pick what he wants from each person and try to incorporate that into building his own empire or legacy of being a top international cricketer.”
That Gill wants to carve his own identity perhaps manifests itself in his clean-shaven look in a team of players with bushy beards, or in his willingness to stick his neck out and speak in support of the farmers’ protests at a time when stoic silence is the norm.
It’s not as if Gill has had it all plain sailing though. Across two IPL seasons – 2020 and 2021 – a middling average and a below-par strike rate meant that he wasn’t quite doing the job for KKR. While a breathtaking 91 in India’s historic win at the Gabba in January 2021 earned him a run in the Test team, he played just one ODI for India in those two years. At the start of 2022, therefore, any ambition of playing the World Cup essentially needed the opening batter to have an extraordinary 18 months and bang down the selection door. He’s done exactly that.
Along the way, his shift from KKR to Gujarat Titans in the IPL has also helped. At a new franchise without any baggage to bog him down, Gill was instrumental in their title-winning exploits last year and the runners-up finish this year. “He’s matured and understood his game a lot more,” said Nayar. “The evolution comes from the experience of playing IPL and international cricket. He’s always had the potential and talent. He’s understood how to realise it in terms of his game plan around scoring runs. His game hasn’t changed so much. His mindset has changed a lot.”
There’s still a school of thought that Gill struggles more than usual on slow pitches where playing through the line is fraught with risk. In the opening Asia Cup game against Pakistan, for instance, he laboured to 10 off 32 balls without a release in sight. But to harp on it will be to perhaps nitpick on a player with many more plusses than minuses.
“I feel Shubman is at the peak of his powers right now. There’s no perfect player. There is only a perfect attitude. I feel he has the perfect attitude to be a successful player,” said Nayar. “Nobody is ever going to achieve perfection. There are always going to be conditions that some may struggle in and some may excel in. He has the mentality to overcome that.”
The time is ripe for Gill to show that mentality and perhaps emulate Kohli in another aspect — win the ODI World Cup in his early 20s.
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