'He hits 4s, 6s, I just watch...' Shubman Gill on playing second fiddle to Rohit; likens his game to Virat Kohli's

Shubman Gill who recently recuperated from Dengue has lost some muscle mass leading to cramps when he played against New Zealand on Wednesday night in the first semi final in the ICC Men's Cricket World Cup 2023. Gill has been anchoring the Hitman show at the mouth of the innings as a partner on the other end. He cheekily admitted that he is there just to watch Rohit Sharma go all guns blazing and then accelerate after the Indian skipper's departure. His level headedness is sure a trait, a rarity among youth. Meenakshi Rao writes on what else the young gun spoke in the post-match conference.

Mumbai: Shubman Gill, the young gun who anchors the Hitman show at the mouth of the innings as a partner on the other end, has his head firmly fixed on his shoulders, a trait rare for youth and its natural exuberance.

Gill has followed the script of staying quiet but solid at the other end when the fast and furious Rohit Sharma is at work. He then turns aggressor, once the Sharma show is over and India needs to build on the platform given by the skipper.

“Everything about him (Rohit) impresses me. I stand as a learner in the powerplay. He plays 10 overs. I play 15-20 balls. I rest and Rohit comes and does his thing. He scores 4s, he sores sixes and I just watch,” he said with an alluring laugh at his post-match presser.

For a natural stroke player like Gill who rose to be the No 1 batter in the MRF rankings this year, how difficult would it get to hold the temptation of hitting, especially with Rohit blazing all guns from one end? But, it is his maturity that he has been follow the assigned role of turning aggressor and start playing shots more freely after the Sharma departs.

“Honestly, when he was there, I didn't get that many balls. My role is just to play my game in the powerplay. Look for good shots look for good boundaries. Once the powerplay is over, I can rotate the strike well, then take the rotation to the spinners and then once you are in, it's all about you and your instinct how you play, how you see which bowler to take on. It's all about reading the game after that,” he said like a veteran he is not.

For someone who returned from dengue with lost muscle mass and a weakened body, Gill has done well for himself in the tournament thus far, scoring 80 runs in the semifinal.

“If I didn't get cramps, maybe I would have scored 100. But, the total we were trying to reach, irrespective of whether I scored 100 or not, we reached there and had a hope of scoring around 400. We did that so it didn’t matter that I made a century or not,” he said.

What makes Gill so endearing is his straightforward answers and childlike freshness. His grounded shots and his arrived approach to the game gives him an edge over cricketers of his age.

Talking about his own performance in reaching the Final and having won the Junior World Cup, Gill said he was in a great space. “The way our batting, bowling and fielding have dominated this World Cup, as a player to be able to play with all those players sitting in the dressing room, it's just been a magnificent run,” he said.

He smiled alluringly when asked how difficult it is to play Mohammed Shami in the nets. “He is very difficult to play him in the nets, but it is fun too as Bumrah, Siraj and Shami enjoy bowling to us in the nets,” he said.

Gill constructed big partnerships with Kohli in the semifinal as well as in the game against Sri Lanka at the same venue and he feels it has been special as their style of playing is similar.

“We talk about the situation and how we want to play. After that, we just keep running. Our game is a little similar because we like to keep running. I am also a little busy, running singles, twos and hitting boundaries in between. We complement each other quite well,” he said.

Gill grew up watching Kohli play, and he partnered him on his big milestone day of scoring his 50th century.

“Every time he comes on to the park, he does something special and just how consistently he's been able to do it for the past 10-15 years is inspiring. For me, it's not so much about the skill that he has, but more about the hunger when he goes there and the intensity with which he plays the game is what inspires me. To be able to have that consistently for as long as he's been doing it is what inspires me,” he said.

Gill is part of a team that has conquered everything, to the extent of being named The Invincibles. Not just the skillset but also the camaraderie and the team spirit have been a learning lesson for this youngster.

“We have been playing together for the past year or so and we know our roles quite well, that has been the difference for me personally. It's been our bowling attack. They have always either defended the total or restricted the other team to a below par score. That's made all the difference for us a team,” he said.

Gill had to miss a couple of matches at the onset of the World Cup due to a bad bout of dengue. He returned to the middle amid concerns of how weak his body may have become to take long-haul pressure under the sun. At Wankhede, during the semifinal he had to retire hurt at 79 and missed a century to the muscles acting up in the face of the heat and humidity.

“I have honestly not really adjusted anything in terms of my batting but because I have lost a bit of muscle mass, the reserve that I used to have before dengue has decreased a little. Generally, I don't get cramps so early. For me it happens after a long period of time, not so soon. But because I've lost muscle mass; the reserve has gone down a bit,” he said.

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