Gill must show will!

Shubman Gill during the fifth Test against Australia in Sydney recently. Pic/Getty Images

Shubman Gill has been an international cricketer for nearly six years, his Test debut came more than four years back. He has made quite a name for himself in white-ball cricket, averaging 58.20 in 47 ODIs (strike-rate 101.74) with a highest of 208 and 30.42 in 21 T20Is (strike-rate 139.27, highest 126').

In Test cricket, however, the 25-year-old from Fazilka in Punjab is still a work in progress, and reasonably slow progress at that. Regarded as one of the more gifted batters in the country, he averages 35.05 from 32 games, which would suggest that he is no longer a rookie, but in the mid-level of experience, at the very least. But he is still to come to grips with Test cricket, and especially Test cricket outside Asia.

It was in Australia during India's last tour that Gill earned his Test spurs in Melbourne once Virat Kohli left home on paternity leave. The classy right-hander made an immediate impression with 45 and an unbeaten 35 in the series-levelling win in the second Test, backed it up with 50 and 31 in the SCG draw and reeled off seven and 91 in Brisbane, the second effort as vital to India's record-breaking win at the Gabba as Rishabh Pant's 89 not out.

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Promising start

With 259 from six innings, two fifties and an average of 51.8, Gill had instantaneously come good on the promise he had shown at the U-19 level. No one had any inkling at the time that that would remain his most glorious non-Asian sojourn, even four years later.

Since his heroics Down Under on debut, Gill hasn't touched even 40 in a Test outside India and Bangladesh. In that time, he has made exactly 300 runs in 10 Tests and 18 innings in England, the West Indies, South Africa and Australia at an average of 17.65 and a highest of 36. By contrast, he boasts 1,334 runs in 19 Tests and 35 knocks in India and Bangladesh for an average of 41.69, all his five centuries coming in his home continent.

Gill is definitely better than his numbers outside Asia, but that has to start manifesting itself in meaningful and substantial runs at the pivotal No. 3 position he has occupied since voluntarily seeking that spot on the tour of the West Indies in July 2023. He is prone to wild lapses in concentration unbecoming of someone succeeding Rahul Dravid and Cheteshwar Pujara at that number. Even in Australia, he got himself out four times in five innings, including twice in the final Test in Sydney where he played ahead of Rohit Sharma, who sat himself out.

Captaincy material

Technically, Gill is very organised. He has all the strokes in the book, is particularly strong off the back foot and has good game-sense. He is seen as a future captain, potentially across formats, and Indian cricket has already invested a lot in him. It's now imperative that Gill starts to repay the faith. If that means compromising on his stroke-making ambitions at the start of his innings, that's exactly what he must do. As he flirts with the status of a senior batter, he needs to step up, and immediately, by imbibing the discipline and self-denial that became the hallmarks of both Dravid and Pujara. England in the summer, on possibly good batting tracks to facilitate Bazball, won't be the worst starting point.