Shubman Gill did not have the smoothest of starts to his ODI captaincy over the last week in Australia, with India losing the series 1-2 and the opener’s bat silenced by the Aussie quicks.
Gill has had a lacklustre run in white-ball cricket this year, despite his blockbuster initiation to Test captaincy in England, where he scored over 750 runs and four centuries. Returning to the T20I set-up for the Asia Cup last month as vice-captain, Gill only aggregated 127 runs in seven outings at a 21.16 average. In the three ODIs in Australia, the 26-year-old only managed scores of 10, 9 and 24.
Former India captain Krishnamachari Srikkanth and batter Mohammed Kaif owed Gill’s pale returns to his immense all-format workload and the pressure of taking over as captain in two formats. Gill has played non-stop cricket throughout the year, save for a month’s break in August. Since September 2024, Gill has featured in the Asia Cup, two Tests against the West Indies and is slated to be part of the five-match T20I leg of the Australia tour as well.
‘Mentally tired’
“He has played a lot of matches lately. He has to open the batting and also captain the team in multiple formats,” said Kaif while reflecting on Gill’s heavy workload.
“Then, there is the IPL captaincy as well. With the auction coming up, there will be calls with the Gujarat Titans for planning. There is a lot on his plate at once, and it seemed like it had affected his batting a bit. He looked mentally tired,” Kaif added on his YouTube channel.
Speaking on his YouTube platform, Srikkanth said the overwhelming pressure of captaincy and the presence of Yashasvi Jaiswal in the squad has meant that Gill has struggled to score a fifty across 14 limited-overs innings for India.
“After performing in England, probably he is also putting pressure on himself. He shouldn’t do that and just play his game. He actually played well today but just got a superb delivery from Hazlewood. More than Shubman Gill getting himself out, it was a wicket-taking delivery that got him. But he does look to be under pressure, just observing his body language because he has replaced Rohit Sharma as the captain, while also opening alongside him,” said Srikkanth.
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“And on the other side, everyone is asking why Yashasvi Jaiswal isn’t playing. All that adds to his pressure. But he’ll get over it as he’s a fantastic player. He should just play his normal game because he’s getting his strides and shots right. He’s just getting out, that’s the only thing. So once he produces a couple of big knocks at home against South Africa, he’ll be set again.,” the former India opener remarked.
