Melbourne [Australia], December 24: India skipper Rohit Sharma on Tuesday backed young batter Shubman Gill amid his poor form in Test cricket and said that they don’t want to complicate too many things with the 25-year-old.
In 12 Tests this year, Gill has scored 866 runs in 21 innings at an average of 45.52, with three centuries and three fifties each. In the last Gabba Test of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy (BGT), the 25-year-old continued with his poor form and scored just one run from three balls in the first inning.
In 12 Tests away from home, Gill has scored 616 runs in 22 innings at an average of 30.80, with one century and two fifties. His best score is 110. However, in 10 Tests in SENA countries, he has scored just 481 runs in 19 innings at a sub-par average of 26.72, with two fifties that came during his debut Test tour in Australia, including the iconic knock of 91 at Brisbane which helped India win the series. Since that knock, in the next 13 innings, he has failed to score even a fifty.
Meanwhile, the youngster has a fine home record, with 1,177 runs in 17 matches and 31 innings at an average of 42.03, with four centuries and five fifties and best score of 128.
The fourth Border-Gavaskar Trophy Test in Melbourne will begin on Boxing Day, with India chasing a win to keep alive their hopes of qualifying for the ICC World Test Championship Final.
Speaking at the pre-match press conference, Rohit said that Shubman Gill looked pretty good in both the innings of the Adelaide Test. The skipper added that Gill couldn’t go on to convert that start into a big score in the Adelaide Test.
At the Adelaide Test, Gill scored 59 runs including both the innings.
“If he gets going, we all know he can be very dangerous. Look, in both innings in Adelaide I thought he looked pretty good, he just didn’t go on to convert that start into a big score. He got, I think, 25-30 odd in both innings. And I’m not going to look too much into Brisbane, got out second or third ball, you can’t really look too much into it. But Gill has obviously been one of our young prospects who is coming up and playing really, really well. These tours can be challenging, it’s the same thing when some of these teams travel to India, it’s very hard for them as well,” Rohit said.
The skipper backed the 25-year-old and said that it’s not easy to put on big runs every time you step out on the crease.
“So it’s the same thing when you travel abroad, it’s not that easy to put on those big runs every time you step out. But especially talking about Gill, his quality, we all know that. It’s just about backing that quality and making sure we give clear messaging to him and not, again, like Jaiswal, we don’t want to complicate too many things with him,” he added.
Rohit added that Gill has scored plenty of runs before making his debut in the Indian Team, so he knows how to score big runs.
“He understands his batting really, really well, and he has piled up so many runs coming into this Indian team before. So he knows how to score big runs, he knows his game really well, in and out. So it’s just making sure that when you get those 30s, 40s, you try and get on to a big one. Getting in here is the toughest part, and when you get in, that is when you cannot leave that opportunity of scoring those big runs. Let’s not worry about that. I think who bats where is something that we need to figure out within ourselves,” he added.
India Squad: Rohit Sharma (C), Jasprit Bumrah (VC), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Devdutt Padikkal, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant (wicket-keeper), Sarfaraz Khan, Dhruv Jurel (wicket-keeper), Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Harshit Rana, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar.
Australia Squad: Pat Cummins (C), Sean Abbott, Scott Boland, Alex Carey, Travis Head (VC), Josh Inglis, Usman Khawaja, Sam Konstas, Marnus Labuschagne, Nathan Lyon, Mitchell Marsh, Jhye Richardson, Steve Smith (VC), Mitchell Starc, Beau Webster.