A day before Shubman Gill broke his 11-month century drought, he was backed on social media by none other than Kevin Pietersen. The former England captain in fact urged the public to have faith in Gill, and compared his career graph to the great Jacques Kallis, who as per KP’s claim, averaged just 22 after first 10 Tests. And the world knows how big a legend he went on to become. Call it coincidence or whatever you want to, Gill, the very next day, proved his detractors wrong, scoring a crucial 104 in India’s second innings to… pretty much, set the record straight. Pietersen then sent out another message on X, where he thanked Gill for proving him right. “Thank you, Shubman Gill,” he wrote.
However, once India defeated England by 106 runs on Day 4 to level the series 1-1, Gill apologised to Pietersen. The reason behind it was that Pietersen wanted to congratulate the youngster on his century after stumps on Day 3, but Gill had to rush to the post-match press conference instead of joining KP and Zaheer Khan on the official broadcaster’s post-match interaction.
Gill: Sorry KP. I had to go for the scans yesterday so they rushed me off.
Pietersen: It’s alright; I forgive you. I’ve been backing you for a very long time and I actually said something about Kallis the other day. I copped the most tremendous amount of abuse. I thanked you yesterday. Thank you, Shubman Gill.
Pietersen then proceeded Gill to ask what it means to be playing for India. The youngster is now into his fifth year of international cricket having made his India debut back in 2019 against New Zealand before the World Cup. After being in and out of the team, Gill finally arrived at the 2020/21 Border-Gavaskar Trophy, scoring a counter-attacking 91 and setting up India’s famous win at the Gabba. Still, Gill would grapple injury concerns but put it on the shelf in 2023, racking centuries for fun. He was the leading ODI run-scorer of the year and even won the Orange Cup after smashing over 700 runs in the IPL.
What pressure of playing for India is to Shubman Gill?
But like any player, Gill hit a bit of a rough patch but on Saturday broke free of it with a 3rd Test century. Gill’s answer to Pietersen’s question was pretty impressive, only highlighting further what playing for the country means for him. “I’ll sum it up in one line. My heartbeat playing the first ball and the last ball was the same throughout the innings. That’s how nervous I was feeling even after scoring my hundred (laughs). That was what I was talking to Rahul [Dravid] sir in the morning when England were batting. It was quite weird for me. I have never experienced like this,” he said.
“Obviously, not being able to score runs the previous few matches. It wasn’t the outside noise but the expectations that I have for myself… I was disappointed how I got out in the first innings here [in Visakhapatnam] and in the first innings in Hyderabad. So all of that expectations, I was disappointed, maybe that’s the reason.”
In a rather remarkable trivia, Gill has amassed the same number of international centuries – 10 – since the beginning of 2023 as Kohli, the superstar whom many believe he is poised to succeed.
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