Daily Times

At every net session, it becomes clear why India believe in Shubman Gill. He plays shots that are supposed to be hard ever so easily.

There was this pull to a ball that was climbing up towards his rib cage at the Gabba. He swayed inside the line, just a subtle realigning of his torso,

nothing more followed by a swivel of the back foot to direct the ball where he wanted it to go.

The eye test in cricket is a rudimentary measure of how good a batter is based on how comfortable they look in the middle. Are they moving into the ball, or are they stuck on the crease? Are they rushed by quality bowling, or do they actually make it look a bit meh? Gill has been very good at passing the eye test in this Border-Gavaskar Trophy. But his highest score is 31. This has been happening for a while. In Birmingham 2022, as India attempted to build on their 2-1 lead in the Pataudi Trophy, he began his innings with a couple of crisp drives, and then he pulled Stuart Broad disdainfully in front of square. Each of those shots was a rendition of his natural instincts. Letting them take over got him to 17 runs from 20 balls. Letting them run unchecked got him dismissed for 17 off 24. James Anderson dangled one wide of off stump, and Gill took the bait.

Since Gill announced himself almost four years ago, setting up India’s win at the Gabba with 91 off 146 balls, his highest score outside Asia is 36. During this period, he has only 267 runs to show across 16 innings in Australia, England, South Africa and the West Indies, for an average of 17.80.