Many of India’s players have shown superb performances this year. One of the players recognized as a rising star of the team is Shubman Gill. While Gill has shown to be a skillful player, who exactly is he?
Here are some basic information on the player:
Born Sep 08, 1999, in Firozpur, Punjab
Role: Batsman
Batting Style: Right-Handed Bat
Bowling Style: Right-arm off-break
Shubman Gill is a batter who’s recently made explosive performances in Test matches. Even as a child, Gill had a passion for cricket and started playing as young as 11 years old.
How it Started
Growing up, Shubman’s love for cricket developed by watching Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, and VVS Laxman on television.
According to Gill’s father, Lakhwinder Singh, Shubman had a passion for cricket since he was a toddler.
Lakhwinder said, “He played cricket only since he was three years old. While kids his age played with toys, he never showed interest in them. His only fascination was with a bat and ball. He even used to sleep with them.”
When his father saw his cricket skills, Singh was convinced of his talent and moved the family to Mohali and rented a house near the PCA Stadium.
When he was 11 years old, Shubman was chosen to play for the Under-16 Punjab cricket team at the district level. During his debut series, he made a record by scoring the highest number of runs, which amounted to 330 in five games.
How Shubman’s Career Developed
In 2013-14 and 2014-15, Gill received the BCCI award for Best Junior Cricketer. When selected for the U19 team, Gill played a pivotal role in India’s impressive 3-1 victory against England in the Youth ODIs. He scored 351 runs in four innings, and by the end of the tour, Gill again emerged as the top scorer, amassing 278 runs across four innings.
He made his List A debut for Punjab in the 2016–17 Vijay Hazare Trophy in February 2017. Then in November 2017, Gill made his first-class debut for Punjab in the 2017–18 Ranji Trophy. During that time, he scored his maiden century, batting for Punjab against Services.
The Kolkata Knight Riders purchased him for ₹1.8 crore (US$230,000) during the 2018 IPL auction held in January. Gill made his Twenty20 debut with the team in the 2018 Indian Premier League in April.
In October 2018, he was named to India C’s squad for the 2018–19 Deodhar Trophy. By January 2019, Gill had scored 990 runs in first-class cricket from fourteen innings across eight matches. Within a week, the player achieved his 1,000th run in first-class cricket in his fifteenth innings.
During his domestic career, Shubman was named one of eight players to watch by the International Cricket Council (ICC) ahead of the 2019 Indian Premier League tournament. He also won the Emerging Player of the tournament award in the 2019 Indian Premier League.
Shubman’s Rising Stardom with Team India
Shubman was added to India’s squad for the limited-overs leg of their series against New Zealand in January 2019, and in the same month, he made his ODI debut. At 19 years and 334 days old, Gill became the youngest Indian batsman to score a first-class double century, with 204 runs for India A against West Indies A at the Brian Lara Cricket Academy in Trinidad and Tobago.
Gill made his Test debut for India in December 2020 and scored 91 runs to help India win the series. In August 2022, Shubman reached a major milestone in his cricket career by scoring his first One Day International (ODI) century for the Indian national team.
Months later, in a Test series against Bangladesh, Gill scored the first century of his Test career and was dismissed for 110 runs. This year, Gill made his Twenty20 International debut in a series against Sri Lanka.
When India played against New Zealand in January, Shubman became 5th Indian batsman to hit a double century in ODIs, and he is currently the youngest batsman to score a double century in ODIs in men’s international cricket. In February, he became the 5th Indian batsman to score a century in all formats of international cricket.
