CHENNAI: Fielding. Good. Bowling. Better. Batting. Best. Shubman Gill. Outstanding. On a night when the hosts decided to deal only in the extraordinary, Gill once again showcased his natural talent with minimum of fuss. He may still not be a natural in the game’s shortest format, but you can see why the management are investing in him, at least in the short-term.
Middling career numbers and a very meh introduction to T20Is (76 runs from five matches at 128.81) didn’t count for much because he’s very much a project player. Keep working on him till he’s chiselled. If Ranchi (seven off six) and Lucknow (11 off nine) offered Gill’s present, Ahmedabad was a thrilling vista into his potential, even in what can safely be said is his weakest format as a batter. While the strip contributed to the opener’s unbeaten 126 he became one of the very few Indian batters to have international centuries in all three formats he still had to make those runs. And the way he made those was reminiscent of all those effortless white-ball runs Virat Kohli used to make.
Go at over run-a-ball to begin with, maintain the tempo in the middle overs before going after the pacers at the end. Seventeen came off his first 10 and 29 came off his next 20 as he opted to not hit the spinners. Forty-six off 30 after the first 10 overs meant he was going slower than the other batters on average but he upped the ante after Suryakumar Yadav departed in the 13th over.
Sixty off his 73 runs came in fours (20) or sixes (42) as he made himself familiar with the vast parts of the mid-wicket region. Both Benjamin Lister and Lockie Ferguson, Gill’s franchise teammate, disappeared for plenty in the back-end of the innings. It was exhibition batting Gill has so much time to play his shots he seldom hits — in what was veritably a decider.
The target of 235 was always going to be a big ask and the visitors didn’t look like putting up any resistance as soon as they lost their first wicket for four. In the end, the hosts were bundled out for a paltry 66. In the bigger scheme of things, fortunes continue to turn for the better for Gill who has had quite the start to 2023. He has made 34.5 per cent of all his white ball runs in his last six games. This period has also seen him make three of his five white-ball 100s.
Welcome to what could be the year of Gill.
Brief scores
India 234/4 in 20 ovs (Gill 126 n.o, Tripathi 44, Hardik 30; Mitchell 1/6) bt New Zealand 66 in 12.1 ovs (Mitchell 35; Hardik 4/16).