Long Read: Inside Shubman Gill’s beautiful mind

Gill likes to play the pull, and people like to see him play the pull; it is a shot he’s practised since he was a kid. Formative years of facing short balls on cement wickets have made the pull and the upper-cut part of his nature. But that has also meant he pulls as a reflex response to the short ball, which is partly why a lot of his pulls are off the lower part of the bat than a bit further up the blade, go straighter rather than squarer, and are hit more into the ground instead of in the air.

Terrific Tewatia 🔥
Sensational Shubman 🔝
Last-ball victory 💪@ShubmanGill & @rahultewatia02 share their emotions after @gujarat_titans' thrilling win over #PBKS. 👍 👍 – By @RajalArora

Full interview 📹 🔽 #TATAIPL | #PBKSvGT https://t.co/6jkw220zGu pic.twitter.com/aszpoVXunT

— IndianPremierLeague (@IPL) April 9, 2022

It is something he wants to tweak for the shortest format, along with cutting down on the dot balls. Having showcased his potential in the longest format – most notably with the 91 in the historic Brisbane chase of 2021 – one of India’s most exciting young batting talents now seeks to take his T20 game to the next level.

“I react mostly (to the short ball). I do not anticipate that much personally. But T20 is a game in which you have to anticipate a bit,” the Gujarat Titans opener told The Indian Express days before IPL 2022 started. “I was working on a couple of things at the NCA (National Cricket Academy) and once the IPL starts, hopefully you will get to see them.”

There are few better than the India skipper to seek advice from on anticipating when looking to pull aerially. Getting on top of the ball and keeping it down while pulling is one thing, but Rohit is able to ride the bounce and send the ball soaring with plenty of distance, as the bat-swing comes from slightly underneath the trajectory of the delivery. That probably requires at least some amount of anticipation, in addition to the ability to pick the length early. It has helped Rohit hit a six every 17.5 deliveries over a long career in T20s; until the start of this IPL, Gill had managed one six every 30 balls.

During his 84 against Delhi Capitals in Pune, he sent four over the boundary in 46 balls, of which only six were dots. “That was the plan,” Gill said after that knock. “To keep rotating the strike and take the singles whenever possible.”

A game to remember @gujarat_titans 💙💙💙 pic.twitter.com/gyMxpL35DU

— Shubman Gill (@ShubmanGill) April 8, 2022

After the 96 against Punjab Kings, his highest T20 score yet, his dot-ball percentage this season stands at 18.5. The last time the IPL was played entirely in India, in 2019, it was 32. In 2021, across India and the UAE, it had climbed to 38.

Gill spent four IPL seasons at Kolkata Knight Riders, where an average of 31.48 and a strike-rate of 123 indicated a solid player not quite able to break the shackles. It was somewhat confounding too, in that Gill, according to Cricviz, has maintained an uncommonly high control percentage over his strokes in a fickle format. But then, little is achieved if the most silken of shots finds the fielder in the ring during the powerplay. There has been a perception that Gill, not unlike the older version of Shikhar Dhawan, is good for chases in the range of 140-150, but can be a bit of a liability for larger pursuits.

“This perception does not affect me much as I know that as a batsman, I should know how to play in every situation,” Gill said. “If the target is 200 and I go in knowing we need ten an over, I should be confident enough to deliver for my team. It is the same if the target is 150 or if we are chasing 120-130 on a difficult wicket.”

‘He has all the answers’

For someone still only 22, Gill is a rare new-age cricketer about whom there have never been any doubts, be it over his talent or his temperament on the field or his attitude off it. After Gill had spent a couple of seasons in the KKR set-up, assistant coach Abhishek Nayar had told this correspondent that he’d never seen someone so sorted at such a tender age.

After the Brisbane Test win, India batting coach Vikram Rathour had remarked how clear Gill had been in his approach against the Australian attack. “The clarity of his plans surprised me. ‘If somebody bowls the short ball at this line and height, this is what I am going to do. If they bowl it from the end where the boundary was shorter, I will pull it for a boundary,’” Rathour had said on R Ashwin’s Youtube channel. “He had all the answers, he knew what he was going to do. I had nothing to say to him. I said, ‘boss, just carry on, you are sorted.’”

Ashwin had responded with more praise for the youngster. “I was blown away thinking somebody was able to pick length, height, line and then also have plans covered for it. That was unreal.”

Gill elaborated on his thought process while facing the short ball during the Brisbane chase. “They were bowling short at the body from both ends. The boundary was very long on one side, around 90-95 metres, and the other side was around 80 metres. So as a batsman obviously you think I will have to time it really well on the longer side for it to get to the boundary,” Gill told this paper.

“But from the other side, you knew that even if you didn’t time it all that well, it still had a chance to go to the boundary as they were bowling at a very good pace. So my mindset was that whenever I get a short ball and the shorter boundary is in play, I’ll try to go for it. But from the other end, I thought that I should leave the bouncers.”

Almost every kid who took guard against the leather ball for the first time would have felt the question popping up in his mind, ‘what if I get hit?’ Gill was no different; he’d stagger outside leg stump and swing hard. The fear was overcome with time, and some inevitable blows to the body, but the habit of staying inside the line of the ball remained. Fearlessness allied with the back-foot technique honed on cement has, over the years, aided in sculpting that signature short-arm pull.

“Whenever a batsman faces fast bowling, especially express bowlers who bowl 140-150kph, he has that extra fraction of a second – even if he is not that good a player – if he is not afraid of the short ball,” Gill explains. “Otherwise, it starts playing on your mind, which goes ‘he’ll bowl short, he’ll bowl short.’ And those who have that extra fraction of a second are able to play better.

“When I was around 5, I was afraid of fast bowling. I would back away and play my shots. Then when I was 7 or 8 and began to play with the leather ball, I had the fear of getting hit. But when I got hit once or twice, I thought it was okay. I realised it was actually not as painful as what I had made up in my mind it would be. Once that fear goes away, your game changes a lot. You start playing much better than earlier.”

To shuffle or not

Going back to the Brisbane 91, Gill had made an initial back-and-across shuffle that helped him get in a better position against the extra bounce in Australia, especially to the left-arm angle of Mitchell Starc. When he returned to the side after a shin injury for the New Zealand home Tests last November, Gill went back to more or less staying still and inside the line in his stance. He is aware that can leave him vulnerable; Kyle Jamieson bowled him with incoming deliveries in both innings in the Kanpur Test.

As a predominantly back-foot player, Gill can be a reluctant shifter onto the front foot; the stride is still in motion at times when the ball reaches him. The front foot and the bat also come down at a steeper angle as they start from further inside the line in the absence of a sizeable shuffle. While Gill has shown he is flexible to adopt the conventional shuffle when he feels conditions demand it, he backs his minimalist approach that also allows him to play those on-the-rise slaps in front of point.

“I don’t make any big change to my technique without talking to my father… In cricket, there is no technique that can be termed ‘out-proof’. Any batsman can get out with any technique. There are one or two important elements.

“Like your shoulder should be aligned towards the ball, you should be a little side-on while playing, you should be in a good position even if your feet are not moving that well. If you are positioned well in relation to the ball, you will manage. As a player you should know what things you need to work on, and where the opposition is looking to get you out. If you know that, it becomes easier to tackle.

“When we play in India, there isn’t that much bounce. Most deliveries stay low. That (reducing the shuffle) was one adjustment I made after talking to our batting coach. I felt I should restrict my initial movement a bit. The ball doesn’t swing much in India either, so the lesser the movement in your body, the better it will be for you.”

Gill has been rated so highly since his junior days that he made his senior Punjab debut when he was only 17. A year later, he was Player of the Tournament in the Under-19 World Cup, and two months after that triumph, he made his T20 debut right away in the IPL for KKR. At 19, he’d already debuted for the senior national side and at 21, he was opening the batting for his country in the Boxing Day Test in Melbourne. Many consider him the torchbearer for the next generation in Indian cricket. Do all the expectations drive him or are they a drag?

“It doesn’t put pressure nor does it push me more. That is all external talk. Until I perform consistently for a few years at the international level and in the IPL, that perception won’t be justified. So it doesn’t bother me, what is important is to give my 100 per cent in whatever opportunity I get for my country and my IPL team. When a batsman goes out to bat, I don’t think he thinks about things such as added responsibility. He thinks about what match situation he has to bat in and what he needs to do.” As Rathour had said after Brisbane, Shubman Gill does sound sorted for sure.