NEW DELHI: September 10, 14, 19, 21, 24, 26, 28.
October 2-4, 10-14. October 19, 23, 25, 29, 31.
November 2, 6, 8, 14-18, 22-26, 30.
December 3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 17, 19.
Welcome to the world of Shubman Gill. By the time India's Test and ODI captain will have completed this winter's schedule, he will have logged enough airmiles to be eligible for the most premium frequent flyer programmes ever designed.
It also acts as a window into the kind of calendar that's baked into most elite teams these days. With Gill's ascension as captain in ODIs as well, he will know that he won't be afforded enough workload management days, days that will be readily available to some of his other all format colleagues. From that perspective alone, his is a schedule that's unprecedented by most modern standards.
Even otherwise, the term, at least from an Indian cricket perspective, doesn't apply to batters. “I don’t know how you look at workload management, but generally we do it for bowlers, mainly fast bowlers," Sitanshu Kotak, India's batting coach, had told reporters during the Asia Cup last month. "When it comes to batters, only if they mentally feel that cricket has become too much for them does it become a concern. In my view, workload management is actually meant for fast bowlers. For batters, I don’t think workload management is that much of an issue."
Ajit Agarkar, chairman of the men's selection committee, sang from the same hymn sheet, when he addressed the issue following the first Test at Ahmedabad.
"Hopefully not," Agarkar said when asked about the dangers of Gill suffering a burnout. "I mean, he's still quite young. We saw what he did in England under immense pressure. So, there were positive signs there. You have seen his record in One-day cricket as a batter. We hope there's no burnout."
From the start of the Asia Cup to the end of the all-format series against South Africa, Gill could have clocked up as many as 41 days on the field out of a total of 101 days, either batting or setting the field. That's without taking into account the physical toll of crisscrossing countries or flying from one city to another in India.
At some level, it's understandable. Gill is the new poster boy of cricket in India, an all-format superstar, a multi-format leader of men and the public face of many an FMCG. But that kind of ignores the unforgiving schedule the 26-year-old is currently on. His next meaningful break will be around Christmas and New Year when he has a few weeks off after South Africa. But post the New Year, he has a packed six months till the completion of the Indian Premier League (IPL).
That also means not much time to improve his game in the nets, a lack of time to finetune his technique if he wants to work on a few things. He spoke on moving from one format to another without a proper break ahead of the first Test.
"When you're going from the shortest to the longest, it is probably the hardest," Gill said. "When you go from T20 to one-day and then Test, (it) is probably easier than going from Test to T20 or T20 to Test.
"I just try to get in the zone," he said. "That zone is just watching the ball well, for me, and to be able to decide, as a batsman, which areas am I going to defend and which areas am I going to attack. Just identifying those areas, and then the mental side comes in, just how much control and how much patience does one have to stick to that process."
Considering that, at least at this point in time, he's India's only all-format specialist batter, he has to not only keep making this switch but keep making this switch while ensuring the standards do not drop.
If issues do crop up and they will — all batters, right from the elite ones to bowlers face do running repairs all the time — the white-ball opener has to troubleshoot on the fly. He won't have time to spend a few days at home where he can look at some videos and analysis before contacting his childhood coach. And he will have to do all of this while be responsible for team talks, coming up with customised plans for his own bowlers, sit in for meetings as well as handle big egos in the dressing room.
If he can emerge the other side unscathed, Indian cricket will have had a good winter.
