India’s young and talented opening batsman Shubman Gill is currently in the UK along with the Indian cricket team for the upcoming World Test Championship Final against New Zealand which will kickstart from June 18 at the Ageas Bowl, Southampton. It very certain that Shubman Gill and Rohit Sharma will open against New Zealand in the WTC final, however, there are some experts who are strongly arguing to include Mayank Agarwal.
Meanwhile, ahead of the much-awaited WTC final, in an interactive session on The Grade Cricketer’s YouTube channel, Shubman Gill recalled how both Mayank Agarwal and Rohit Sharma gave him the benefit of being the junior-most member of the squad by taking the strike on the first ball in his maiden Test series against Australia.
Shubman also revealed the blunder he made in the second Test match against England, where he asked for the strike but got out for a 3-ball duck. He revealed:
“Never! (if he will ever take the strike on the first ball) I remember in my debut innings that Mayank was kind enough to say ‘Okay, I know you are under pressure so I will take the strike’ and he took the strike in both innings. And then in the next match, I was supposed to take the strike but Mayank didn’t play, Rohit bhai played (chuckles). Rohit himself said: ‘I know you are a youngster, so I will take the strike.’ From there on, he took the strike every game until that match against England. I don’t know why I told him that I will take the strike and obviously, that didn’t work for me, I got out on the 3rd or 4th ball on a duck. But yes, that won’t happen again anytime soon,”
It’s Day 2 of the intra-squad match simulation.
After @RealShubmanGill got a steady start with 85 off 135 deliveries, @RishabhPant17 found his groove with a 121* off 94 deliveries.@ImIshant leads the pack with 3/36 #TeamIndia pic.twitter.com/YRNsVjweDt
— BCCI (@BCCI) June 12, 2021
Further, Shubman Gill was asked how long before the game he and Rohit Sharma would decide to take the strike. Responding to this, Shubman sheepishly replied that it could happen anytime, even moments before the game. He said:
“Honestly, it can happen anytime. Like once, I remember we were almost in the middle, we were tapping our bats and I asked Rohit ‘Can you please take the strike?’. Because Mitch [Mitchell Starc] was going on his run-up and I was trying to search the non-striker’s end (laughs).”
Meanwhile, Gill scored a 135-ball 85 in an intra-squad match recently, thus, cementing his place in the playing XI for Team India even further. It will be interesting to see if he is able to leave a mark with his performance in the mega-event.
