Time for Gujarat and Gill to grow together

The Indian Premier League (IPL) has changed the way cricket is played. The most common discourse around the league suggests it is more business than it is cricket and one cannot simply deny it. The latest developments in the trading window, right after the retentions were announced, encourage the discourse for the nth time. 

For there is no cricketing sense for Gujarat Titans to trade out Hardik Pandya, the only proven Indian seam-bowling all-rounder, plus the captain who led them to two finals in two appearances in the competition to Mumbai Indians. In addition, Pandya was the face of the franchise and the only high-profile player adding the local flavor to the franchise. 

ALSO READ: The bewildering case of Hardik Pandya’s trade

How Gujarat fills the void created by Pandya’s absence will be decided in the auction. For now, they have announced Pandya’s successor as captain, picking Shubman Gill to lead the team.

Gill’s appointment as captain over some experienced pros like Kane Williamson, Rashid Khan and David Miller is another business-oriented decision more than the cricketing merit. One can debate that it is always beneficial to have an Indian player as a skipper in the IPL but in Gill, Gujarat’s focus lies more on finding a new face at forefront, in symphony with how MS Dhoni for Chennai and Virat Kohli for Bangalore have established a fanbase.

In that regard, only 24 years old, Gill’s cricketing career has picked up in the 5th gear over the last few months, as posted by Harsha Bhogle. 

As a new franchise alongside Lucknow, when Gujarat picked their three players in the draft ahead of the 2022 mega auction, Gill was signed at only INR 7 crore in comparison with 15 crore each for Rashid and Pandya. A few months before that, Gill was released by his first IPL franchise, Kolkata Knight Riders, at the expense of the secondary skill of Venkatesh Iyer. 

A lot of water has flown under the bridge since then. Gill has become an all-format player for India, a specie that is still rare to find given the stiff demands of international cricket. He has a double hundred in ODIs, a hundred in T20 cricket and close to 1000 Test runs with two hundreds. 

Moreover, his surge as an IPL batter could not have come at a better time. In the second half of IPL 2023, Gill hammered 515 runs in seven innings, averaging 103 at a strike rate of 178.8, including three hundreds and another score of 94 not out. In the 26 innings prior to this phase, Gill averaged 35.8 in 26 innings at a strike rate of 133.8, with questions still lingering on his T20 game and the ability to accelerate. 

Those questions were answered in Bangalore and Ahmedabad. In the last league game of the 2023 season, Gill cruised his way to a 52-ball 102 that silenced the cauldron of RCB fans at the Chinnaswamy stadium as they saw the ‘Prince’ knock the ‘King’s’ team out of the season. The result of that game mattered little for Gujarat who were going to end the league phase at the top of the table. 

But for the first time, Gujarat had a top-order Indian batter to build a fan base around which doesn’t happen as easily with the bowlers. It is skewed but that is how things work in Indian cricket - big scores with the bat mean a lot more than bowlers taking heaps of wickets. 

Two games later, the right-hander pummeled the Mumbai attack, scoring a blistering 129 off 60 balls in Qualifier 2, booking a second successive final for the Gujarat Titans. 

Gill has drawn comparisons with Kohli in terms of being the next poster boy of India. Coincidentally, Kohli was also 24 when he was appointed as the full-time captain of RCB, back in 2013. 

At that point, Kohli had led his teams across various non-international tournaments in 22 matches - 10 T20s (all for RCB in the absence of the regular skipper, Daniel Vettori), seven List-A and five First-class matches. In comparison, Gill has led in 12 matches, all at domestic level - two T20s, four First-class games and six List-A fixtures, back in 2019/20. 

Kohli certainly didn’t let captaincy be a burden on his batting and the same will be expected from Gill. If anything, Gill has more natural flair, as attested by Kohli himself, to prevent the leadership from affecting his batting. 

And with Pandya out of the picture, it is time for Gill to create a legacy with Gujarat Titans, as the likes of Dhoni, Kohli, Gambhir with Kolkata and Warner with Hyderabad have done in the past. Pandya’s move will, in fact, make the 24-year-old more appealing to the Gujarat fans, thereby, vindicating Gujarat’s move of promoting the new face of their franchise.

While Pandya’s departure is certainly a setback for a franchise that has made it to two finals in as many appearances in the competition, it is time for Gujarat and Gill to grow together.