Gill played a match-winning knock of 86 in just 50 balls against KKR.
With this performance, Gill became the new No. 1 on the Orange Cap table, reaching 251 runs in four innings at a strike rate of 154.93. It was his third consecutive half-century, which pushed him 23 runs ahead of the second-placed Virat Kohli (228 runs in five innings at strike rate of 158.33).
After receiving the Player-of-the-Match award, Gill stated that his primary focus is on winning the cup rather than comparing his current form to his staggering performance from the 2023 season, where he amassed 890 runs at a strike rate of 157.80 with three hundreds.
"Honestly, I don't think it matters. The only thing that matters is the win and obviously, playing the final and winning the cup would be something that I'm looking forward for," Gill said at the post-match presentation.
The GT captain expressed disappointment in his dismissal as he wanted to finish the match for his team.
“Yeah, ideally we would have liked to finish at least an over, couple of overs before and I was quite disappointed with the way I got out. I wanted to be there till the end and finish it. Hopefully, the next chance I get, I would be able to do that,” he added.
Shubman Gill highlighted his work on fitness and the mental, tactical aspects of the game. “Yeah, definitely. I think fitness was something, I got a couple of months before this. And fitness was one thing that I worked on. And apart from that, just working on the mental aspect of the game and trying to get better, not just technically, but tactically as well,” he said.
“It's all about, try to stay in the present, not try to think too far ahead or look into your past mistakes. Obviously, you want to learn from them, but you don't want to dwell on them. And that is something that, it's a conscious decision every time, you go to bat or you go in the field, your mind takes you to all sorts of places, but it's important to stay present,” he remarked.
Mohammed Siraj (2-23) and Kagiso Rabada (3-29) were the pick of the bowlers for GT, sharing five scalps between them while also recording economical spells.
Gill mentioned that bowling Siraj and Rabada early was based on their ability to find early wickets and utilize the nipping ball, despite the hot conditions.
“Honestly, the way both of them were bowling was, it looked like they could get a wicket on every ball and giving both of them one extra over in the end, I could see the ball was nipping a little bit, so it was a decision, I asked both of them if they are ready to bowl one more because, it's a little bit hot, so it's not easy to bowl three overs on the trot,” he said.
Cameron Green anchored a struggling KKR side that collapsed to 32/3 early on. The all-rounder eventually scored 79 runs off 55 balls, including 7 fours and 4 sixes, to help the visitors post a total of 180.
Gill felt the KKR took the game away momentarily, but the focus remained on taking wickets, given the length of their batting lineup.
“Yeah, I think they took the game away from us a little bit in the middle overs, but I think it was important, you know, to still look for wickets and have a long batting line-up I think. Sunil came at number 9 or something. So, and we knew that they're going to try to swing at us every ball. So I think having that mindset of keep taking wickets and looking for the attacking option was the talk in the middle.”
When asked about his new look (full stubble beard and mustache), Gill said he wanted to try "something a little bit different" and joked that since he had kept the style for three games resulting in three wins, the luck factor might make it stick around.
“Let's see, let's see. So far, wanted to do something a little bit different. So, so far so good. Kept it for three games, three wins. So let's see,” he concluded.