AHMEDABAD: Did you have your notebook beside you when Shubman Gill offered a free lesson in the art of marrying precision with elegance on Saturday? It was everything that was promised.
Grace. Style. Timing. Finesse.
On moving day at Ahmedabad on Saturday, Gill used his bat as a quill to compose an ode to his very unique technique. There is no great footwork, the trigger movements are subtle. It's all a transfer of weight followed by magic hands.
In the process of his fluent, fun 128, he also showed why he's the heir apparent, the next in a long line of batting royalty to come from this part of the globe.
What makes the 23-year-old so special — and in one way comparable to England's Harry Brook — is the time he has on his hands. Former AFC Ajax manager, David Endt, had once noted that 'the seconds of the greats are longer than normal people'. Endt never watched Gill but he may well have been speaking about the opener. Gill could have as well rolled out a deck chair and lit a cigar before playing some of the strokes he did, that's the amount of time he had on his hands. And once he played them, it was okay if you did make childish sounds as they hit the boundary cushions.
Out of all the shots Gill plays, the one that ought to be a million-dollar NFT before long is the way he brings the bat down from an angle above off-stump before shot-arm jabbing an incoming delivery from a pacer through mid-wicket for a four. Different batters will approach this ball in all manner of ways; flicking it in front of square, dead-batting it, going back to punch it down the ground... the options are many. Not many, though, have Gill's.
The second he short-arm jabbed a Mitchell Starc delivery past mid-wicket to the boundary in the morning session, the latter smiled. After the day's play, Gill attributed that particular shot to hours of practice with a plastic ball on a cement surface.
That is his bellwether shot to really know if he's feeling it. Not that punch through mid-wicket but the way he uses the short-arm jab itself. On a good batting surface like this, he uses that jab to set himself up to access both sides of the wicket in front of square. Later in the innings, he accessed cover with a similar technique against Cameron Green.
"One of those shots which automatically develops once you start playing bouncers," he said in the press conference when queried about how he had developed that particular technique. "I used to practice playing bouncers with a plastic ball on a cement surface. (Used to play those shots) for balls that were a little fuller so it kind of developed because I used to play that shot over and over again. It's more instinctive now."
For a batter who's blessed with timing, his Test average is disappointing (34.23 across 15 games). So, it was also heartening to see him buckle down and make a 100 when he could have easily been dismissed during a tight second session. Considering he was recalled to the side in the last Test, this was also an important contribution from a personal standpoint. "I was out of the team after my injury following the WTC final," he said. "KL (Rahul) bhai came and did very well, scoring centuries. To be honest, I don't think I performed as well in Tests till that point. To be able to get better at certain areas, areas that I'm working, that's what I was trying to do.
"(With respect to the first two Tests), not much just practicing, training. Getting opportunities and chances is not up to me, that's with the team management, I was doing the things that were in my control."
After he reached his second Test century, a top edge off an attempted sweep that went for four, he removed the helmet and punched the air before bowing — a trademark celebration of his. If the Punjab batter continues on this upward trajectory, the crowd will start reciprocating that celebration of his in front of him.