Gill's moment in the spotlight: A natural opportunity to shine

Despite his restrained celebrations, Gill has been frequently acknowledging the crowd's applause due to his exceptional ability to pace an ODI innings. His century against Bangladesh in the Champions Trophy on Thursday may have been his slowest of the 8 hundreds he has scored, but it proved to be exactly what his team required.

These days, when his senior partner Rohit Sharma is going hammer-and-tongs at the other end, Gill is happy to sit back in the first ten overs. In Dubai, with the new ball not quite coming off the surface, he decided to go aerial more often while the field up. Later, when the spinners came on, between him and Kohli, they decided, hitting straight wasn’t easy, and rotated the strike more often.

Just as those climbing the corporate ladder learn on-the-job the quickest, Gill is comprehending and executing mid-pitch lessons from seniors batters the best. While Rohit’s chancy knock eventually ran out of luck at 41, Gill kept attack ing the Bangladesh pacers with inside out drives that oozed class. Even as Kohli couldn’t see off Rishad Hossein’s spell of leg-spin, Gill batted on, choosing to be circumspect against the spinners and capitalising against the pacers.

Cricviz measured Gill’s batting control percentage to be a high 93.2 % on a challenging playing surface. “Definitely, one of the most satisfying innings that I have played and my first century in ICC events,” he said post-match. “Very satisfying and very happy with the way I performed.”

This was Gill’s second consecutive ODI ton. His two scores before those two were fifties too. His batting control percentage was up there during those knocks in the England ODI series, where he took home the Man of the series award with 259 runs in 3 innings, averaging 86.

If one takes the ODI series against Sri Lanka last year to be an aberration, Gill also had a fantastic 2023 World Cup (354 runs with 4 fifties in 9 innings, averaging 44). By even a conservative estimate, Gill is in the middle of a purple patch — the kind that few batters ever experience. It may well be time to say, Gill is India’s most dominant ODI player today.

Rohit has eschewed from a longer stay in favour of impact performances. Kohli is nowhere close to his best. Shreyas Iyer has his moments but is yet to grow an appetite for match-winning scores. But Gill is owning the stage and raking in the applause.

“Certain players have their strength in certain formats. And if one format doesn’t go well, doesn’t mean that the other format will be the same. And it’s there for all of us to see what happened in Australia. Things have changed. So, with Gill, we know the numbers are crazy,” Indian captain Rohit Sharma said in Dubai. “He’s been superb for us in the last three, four years. And obviously, there is a reason that he’s been elevated to be the vice-captain of the team as well.”

Long touted to be Kohli’s successor to take India’s batting legacy forward, Gill still has some work to do in the other formats. His ODI record (average of 62.51) is almost twice as good in comparison to Tests (avg 35.05) and T20Is (avg 30.42, SR 139). It’s now for the ODI vice-captain to take a quantum leap in other formats.

He needs to tweak his game just enough to become a batter-par excellence for all conditions. Gill couldn’t build on his commanding 90 against New Zealand on a turning Mumbai Test match pitch with similar tall scores on Australian decks in the recent tour Down Under and he would want to remedy that during India’s English summer later this year.

Similarly, to play a part in India’s modern T20 outlook, he would want to mesh his timing with the power game required to dominate the format.

But that’s for the future. In the here and now, Gill holds the key to India’s Champions Trophy hopes. He has all the shots. — the drives are silken, the leg glances delicate and the short arm horizontal jab off the front foot is all his own. Against spin, he’s starting to use his feet. Besides, he’s a natural at rotating the strike, the lifeline of the ODI game.

“Hopefully, he has a great tournament, and it eventually will help us achieve the things that we are looking to achieve,” said Rohit.

With the form he is in, Gill should look to make this tournament his own. Like Kohli has done so often in the past. Like Sachin Tendulkar regularly did. This is Gill’s chance to show that he’s truly worthy of the hype.

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