The Revenge of Shubman Gill, from being dumped by KKR to becoming IPL 2023's breakout star
When Shubman Gill was released by Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) ahead of 2022 IPL auctions, and he was roped in by Gujarat Titans (GT) at a whopping Rs 8 crore, nobody had anticipated the impact of these two decisions.
Two years down the line, letting Gill go seems like the worst decision KKR has made, while hiring him has been a game changer for GT.
Gill has been a star player for GT since last year. After being a key architect of GT’s maiden title last year, he has been in a brilliant form this year too. The right-handed batter has slammed three centuries this year, amassing 851 runs in 16 matches at a strike-rate of 156.43 averaging 60.79..
He has even surpassed the performance of his last 3 seasons and churned out his best performance so far.
But the meteoric rise of the Punjabi cricketer didn't happen overnight. The boy from Firozpur took his own time to become an IPL star.
The rise of Shubman Gill
Gill was the vice captain of U-19 Indian cricket team in 2018, the year he was picked up by KKR at a price of Rs 1.8 crore.
The 18-year-old had an impeccable U-19 World Cup tournament that year as he had slammed three-half centuries at good strike rates.
Ahead of the IPL season, teams were looking for an overhaul and Gill was chased by almost every franchise at the auctions. He had a base price of Rs 20 lakh and was eventually booked by KKR at Rs 1.8 crore.
It was a decent season for Gill under new captain Dinesh Karthik, as he made 213 runs in 13 matches at an average of 146.04. Batting lower down the order, Gill tuned out to be a good finisher, despite having no experience of finishing the game in his domestic career.
In the U-19 World Cup, he batted at number three position and was probably a middle order batsman.
However, the real spark in Gill was seen in the last few matches of IPL 2019 when he opened the innings for KKR. In two out of last three games for KKR, Gill smashed two half-centuries (76, 65) against Mumbai Indians and Kings XI Punjab.
KKR had then realized that they had a potential opener in Gill. The next season, Gill was tasked to open the innings for KKR and he performed reasonably well scoring 440 runs in 11 matches at a strike-rate of 117.96 and an average of 33.84.
And 2021 was an equally good season for Gill as he opened with Venkatesh Iyer, forming good partnerships. Gill's strike rate of 118.90 was a bit low but he averaged 28.11 making 478 runs in 17 matches. It was also after six years that KKR had qualified for the final.
And just when it looked like KKR had a formidable and perhaps one of the best batting lineups of IPL, the management released Gill and Rahul Tripathi from their side. Team’s head-coach Brendom McCullum said that though it was disappointing to let go Gill, the team had to make hard choices.
This decision today looks like a big mistake of KKR, as their batting has been a flop show since last season.
Why Shubman Gill is the player to watch out for the final
There is not an iota of doubt that in today’s final against CSK, Gill would be the most important player to watch out for. The way Gill hammered Mumbai Indians bowlers in the Qualifier 2, making his highest score of 129 off just 60 balls was phenomenal.
On paper, Chennai doesn’t have high-quality bowling like Gujarat Titans (GT), and apart from Maheesh Pathirana and Mohit Sharma, the team lacks quality pacers to defend low totals. Ben Stokes has played only 2 games for CSK this season having been bought at Rs 16 crore.
We saw how Gill whacked MI’s key bowler Akash Madhwal for three sixes in a row in the last match. And with CSK lacking quality bowlers, it would be a great opportunity for Gill to go all guns blazing against CSK.
MS Dhoni would have to thing of a good strategy to keep Gill in check if he wants to lift the fifht IPL title.