Shubman Gill: Last night when KKR outclassed Sunrisers Hyderabad for their first IPL victory in the current edition of the tournament, youngster Shubman Gill played a gem of a knock that drew plaudits from several cricketing experts.
It was not just a great knock but that was an innings which was filled with some exquisite strokes and a couple of massive sixes. Gill reigned supreme over all the Hyderabad bowlers including Rashid Khan whom he had no difficulty playing at all. He carved a couple of brilliant strokes on the off-side to start with his spectacular innings and then followed it with some fine running between the wickets.
A tweet drew everyone’s attention because of a stat that propelled the brilliance of Gill’s innings by leaps and bounds. The tweet read, “Shubman Gill’s score of 70 is (currently) the highest score in IPL history to contain no misses or edges.”
Shubman Gill’s score of 70 is (currently) the highest score in IPL history to contain no misses or edges. #IPL2020 #KKRvSRH
— The CricViz Analyst (@cricvizanalyst) September 26, 2020
Shubman Gill has always been touted as India’s next big thing ever since he made his appearance in the U-19 World Cup. The virtues that underline his magnificence are his temperament, his excellent game-reading flair, his brilliant calculations of the right time to start slogging, his consideration of the risk factor, his immaculate sense of timing, and his impeccable placements.
Last night the total that was being chased by KKR was significantly on the lower side, thanks to some phenomenal bowling, however, things got tricky for the opener when they lost three early wickets that turned the game upside down.
That is exactly when Gill exhibited some top-class patience and navigated through the tricky surface to get on top of every single bowler trying a crack at him. Those drives were beautiful to watch and his dance down the pitch to take out Abhishek Sharma and Khaleel Ahmed was intergalactic stuff.
Another important part about his knock was the way he placed the innings, dispersing those runs uniformly all over the park. He scored heavily in the long-on region that saw him garnering 18 runs out of his total tally. The second most dominated area was the leg-side where he managed to fire 18 runs again. On the off-side, Gill managed 16 runs that saw him smashing two brilliant boundaries.
He didn’t mishit one single delivery and played some cracking shots all over the park to trade the bowlers out of the park whenever there was something loose at his end. With only five batsmen in their squad, KKR will heavily rely on this youngster to give them a perfect start, especially with Brendon McCullum at the helm of affairs.
Former England cricketer Kevin Pietersen wrote on Twitter that Shubman Gill should be the skipper of KKR.
He should be the captain of KKR – @RealShubmanGill.
— Kevin Pietersen? (@KP24) September 26, 2020
