The juggernaut of the rise of Shubman Gill is rolling in full flow now. The 24-year-old young India opener, who is touted as the successor to Virat Kohli’s batting legacy, is now chasing a major record of Sachin Tendulkar that the Master has held for 25 years.
On Sunday in Indore, against Australia, Shubman Gill cracked his 5th ODI century of 2023- and his 6th ODI ton overall – to take his tally of runs in 2023 to 1230 runs in only 20 ODI innings this year at an average of 77 with 5 centuries and 5 fifties to his name.
Tendulkar holds the record for most ODI runs in a calendar year – 1894 runs in 33 knocks in 1998 at an average of 65 with 9 centuries and 7 fifties. Gill, who is rested from the 3rd ODI against Australia, has at least 9 World Cup 2023 matches to bat in – if he’s fit in all games – plus 3 more ODIs in December in South Africa. So if he continues on his supreme touch, Gill can take down Tendulkar’s record of most runs in a calendar year in ODIs.
Now, coming to the present, Gill is currently the 2nd ranked ICC ODI Batsman. But the heap of runs he’s scoring, and his consistency, it seems only a matter of time before the ‘Prince’ of Indian cricket will rise to the number 1 spot, replacing Pakistan captain Babar Azam.
Babar Azam, who has rating points 857, is still a distance ahead of Shubman Gill, who has 814 rating points. But with a long World Cup ahead, the positions can swap too.
Indian fans have been trolling Babar Azam as Shubman Gill slammed a century vs Australia.
Here are some funny memes on Babar Azam vs Shubman Gill:
India continue to gain more positives as they approach the World Cup 2023. While Gill scored a stunning century, it was the century from Shreyas Iyer that would have given the management more happiness as Iyer was coming from an injury and needed runs and confidence under his belt heading into the World Cup.
Later on, R Ashwin and Jadeja took three wickets each while Prasidh Krishna took two wickets.
