The former Indian captain and opening batter of the side, Sunil Gavaskar, has minced no words in lambasting the poor shot selection of Shubman Gill during the first innings of the third Test match of the Border Gavaskar Trophy (BGT) 2024-25 at the Gabba in Brisbane. The right-handed batter had a decent start in the series but couldn’t carry on.
Sunil Gavaskar has not been kind enough in describing the big booming drive from India’s number three, who put the rest of the batting department exposed against the new red-cherry. The Punjab-born missed the opening game of the series at the Optus Stadium in Perth because of the neck injury that he picked up in the match situation at the WACA.
However, Gill had a decent time at the Adelaide Oval in the pink-ball encounter, where he looked stable and was playing his strong shots quite comfortably around the park. In the first innings, he missed a straight ball to be adjusted leg before the stumps against Scott Boland, while in the second, he found his stumps being broken by a beautiful late swinging ball from Mitchell Starc.
Sunil Gavaskar slams booming drive of Shubman Gill in Brisbane
It continued in the first innings of the third Test at the Gabba. He walked out early in the middle with the fall of Yashasvi Jaiswal, who punched the leg-sided ball straight into the hands of the square leg. Starc flipped the coin in the air by a greedy length delivery outside the off stump as the right-handed batter went for a big booming drive from his body.
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That delivery was nearly at the seventh stumps. Having taken the outside edge of the blade, it ended in the hands of the gully fielder, Mitchell Marsh, who jumped to collect the ball out of the thin air.
Sunil Gavaskar wasn’t much pleased with that ordinary shot of the vice-captain as the latter returned to the dressing room for one. The shot stunned the former Mumbai opener, the Indian fans, and the entire visiting dressing room.
“Leave your image in the dressing room. Certain shots are dangerous at the start of your innings before you are set, and you don’t have the measure of what the wicket is doing.” Sunil Gavaskar expressed this during a discussion on Star Sports.
Gill now has smashed 1859 runs in 56 innings at an average of around 30 and a strike rate of 61 with the help of five centuries and seven half-centuries at a best score of 128. When it comes to his record away from home, the right-handed batter has grabbed 616 runs at a Test average of 30.80 with one solitary century and two fifties.
“Keep all those shots in your back pocket. Take them out when you are 30-40-50 not out, then can you get those shots again.” Sunil Gavaskar added.
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Gill had a good start in the ongoing year in the red-ball format with another home century against Bangladesh besides three half-centuries as he has smacked 866 Test runs in 22 innings in the year 2024.
Sunil Gavaskar has further remarked that there was a bit of bad luck for the youngster, but the latter, as SMG mentioned, could have easily left the wide delivery.
“Not very good shot selection, you could say. It was a very good catch, so there was a little bit of bad luck as well over there. But he could have left that ball alone; it would have gone harmlessly to the wicketkeeper. Gill is now back in the dugout.” Sunil Gavaskar concluded.
