IPL 2019: I Think It Was Mixed Kind Of Season For Me – Shubman Gill
May 14, 2019 at 11:00 AM
Youngster Shubman Gill impressed with his brilliant performances in recently concluded IPL 2019. At the end of IPL 2019, he won the Emerging Player of the Tournament. However, Gill feels that he had the mixed kind of performances in this IPL season.
Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) youngster Shubman Gill has recently claimed that his own game worked properly in the IPL 2019 campaign. However, he is disappointed for not working his other plans.
Recently Gill told PTI, “I think it was mixed kind of (IPL) season for me because first I was not opening in the first half, and then I got an opportunity to open and then I went back and again opened. The kind of opportunities I got I tried to capitalise on all of them.
“And then the learnings for me in this particular IPL was that when-ever I tried to go over the top or whenever I tried to do extra, it didn’t really paid off well, but whenever I was myself and trying to have some fun and playing my game it paid off for me.”
Initially, in IPL 2019, the 19-year-old Shubman Gill struggled with the limited opportunities as a middle-order batsman. However, later, the right-handed batsman shined as the opening batsman in this IPL season. As an opening batsman in IPL 2019, Gill played some spectacular innings like 65, 76 and 65*. The cricket experts highly appreciated this youngster for his impressive batting performances despite not getting proper opportunities consistently.
In IPL 2019, Gill scored 296 runs in 13 innings with an average of 32.88 and strike-rate of 124.36. At the end of this IPL season, he was the fourth most run-scorer for KKR.
I want to really capitalise on upcoming opportunities to play for India A – Shubman Gill
Talking about his next plan, Gill is eyeing to perform well in the forthcoming matches for India A. Through his good performances for India A, Gill wants to return to the national team and then establish himself.
He said, “What I am really looking forward to is, now we will have some India A series and I want to really capitalise on those (opportunities), be in the series and score lot of runs and then fortunately get an opportunity in the Indian team and then I want to really establish myself there (in the Indian team).”
Before the IPL 2019, Gill made his international cricket debut. During India’s tour of New Zealand in early this year, Gill played two ODIs. In those ODIs, Gill scored 9 and 7 runs respectively.
My only focus is who I am playing against and how I am going to score runs – Shubman Gill
Many cricket experts believe that Gill can become India’s next star cricketer. However, Gill is only focusing on his game as he believes that these talks don’t matter once he comes on the ground.
Gill added, “These kind of talks only matter to you once you are out of the ground. When I am in the ground, going there to bat, these kind off things don’t come to my head. My only focus is who I am playing against and how I am going to score runs.”
Gill was the Player of the Tournament in the 2018 ICC U19 Cricket World Cup that India U19 won under Prithvi Shaw‘s captaincy. Gill was the second most run-scorer in that tournament who scored 372 runs in five innings with an average of 124.00.
In the 2018/19 Ranji Trophy, Gill was the leading run-scorer for his team Punjab. He scored 728 runs in nine innings with an average of 104.00. He hit two centuries and four half-centuries in the latest Ranji Trophy season.