The wily old Javed Miandad was impressed. It’s a show from a year ago where Miandad asks upcoming cricketers from Pakistan to look and learn from Shubman Gill’s batting. And his wrists in particular. Miandad, whose street-cred is well established in India-Pakistan battles, gestures the wrist-break of Gill: he gestures how Gill powers the ball and gives it direction by snapping his wrists.
On Sunday, another wily customer, the recently-retired R Ashwin, cued up two balls from Shubman Gill to talk about Gill’s hands, feet, and the smart brain. The first ball is when Gill moved down the track to lift Shaheen Afridi’s length delivery up and over the infield to the long-on boundary. Ashwin points to how close Gill’s hands are to his body, and how his feet get ready to move. It’s a shot replayed on YouTube shorts and in highlights packages, but Ashwin is more impressed with what followed. On paper, it’s just a flick for a single, that turns to two due to an overthrow, but it’s interesting to see why Ashwin rates it.
“Look at his hands, the way he brings it from outside off this time (more away from the body this time as opposed to the previous ball), and his feet press back. He anticipates that the fast bowler Shaheen Afridi might bounce him. The way the hands have moved indicate he is ready for the pull (the short-arm characteristic fierce jab), and his feet suggest he is readying to go back. Afridi also realises it and goes fuller,” Ashwin says on his YouTube show ‘Ash ki baat’. But though Gill is ready for the pull, he doesn’t commit. “He adjusts and flicks it away.”
And there is the factor that Pakistani Basit Ali cottoned on to on his YouTube channel after Gill’s hundred against England in the recently concluded ODI series. “Voh ab maazey le raha hai bhaari ke. Phase khelta hai, mein kyun Bongi shot khel k out hoon? Isey kehte hain art of batting, class batting. (He is now enjoying his batting. Wants to get stuck in there in the middle, why should I get out playing reckless shots?”)
Put together Miandad, Ashwin’s observations about his batting, and Basit’s point about the maturing persona, it’s easy to see why Gill the white-ball batsman is the No.1 cricketer in the world in this format. The skill (the wrist-snap that Miandad loves), the head-space that impresses Ashwin, and the desire to play match-deciding knocks and not just games — the three traits have increasingly been blending together harmoniously for a while now.
All those three features gelled beautifully in the moments after the fall of Rohit Sharma. He patted down cautiously the deliveries from Naseem Shah, a bowler who hits the best lengths against him. Not too full like Shaheen can allow Gill, essentially a batsman who stays on and or behind the crease line, to let his hands flow through the drives without a big positive stride. Not back of length like Haris Rauf, that allows Gill to punch on the up and short-arm jab. Naseem’s lengths demanded Gill to press forward if he wanted to drive on the up, else take the risk of punching it aerially, and he quietly tapped them away.
He was up and about in the next over from Shaheen. A peach of a cover drive had the full-length ball plummeting through extra cover. A couple of balls later he went down the pitch to ping the straight boundary before he did what Ashwin was impressed with – a quiet flick shot.
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It’s his intent that he says that’s most important to him. In a chat with the broadcasters at the end of the game, he talks about how he can get into problems if his first thought is defensive. “I am at my best when I think positive intent first.” That instinct is crucial for India’s opener – else Shaheen Afridi might well have found his game especially after Rohit’s wicket. The pressure might have shifted on Virat Kohli to make use of the Powerplay by doing something he says he doesn’t want to do: “My game at No.3 is not to take risks that could affect the team,” Kohli said after his 51st hundred. For him to stay relatively risk-free, if Rohit isn’t around, it’s up to Gill to seize those little big moments against the new ball.
In the first game against Bangladesh, that intent came to the fore again. Sitting beside Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis in the show ‘Dressing Room’, Cheteshwar Pujara was suitably impressed by how Gill batted on the slow pitch where the ball wasn’t coming on. “He moved towards the ball, showed intent, it wasn’t easy to do that.” At the end of that game, Gill would talk about how he and Rohit had decided that they weren’t going to cut on that pitch – the shot that Kohli would get out trying. Neither would they drive on the front foot. The sluggish nature of the pitch had the ball stopping a touch – and both those shots are risky. Instead, Gill walked down the track, or pressed forward as much as he could, to get as close to the ball to push and punch. Or wait for the ball to come to him before punching off the back foot.
The maturity in not just planning but executing it captivated the likes of Pujara and Basit, and what makes him India’s most valuable batsman in this Champions Trophy. The challenge will come against a team like South Africa or New Zealand who will hit the lengths that Naseem Shah hit and draw him forward, and not allow him to drive by just leaning through his shots with a tiny stride out. The last one year from Miandad’s notes to Basit’s ‘ab maza le raha hai’ suggests he is up for the task, but time will tell.
