Having kickstarted the year with the honour of becoming "Player of the Tournament" in the ICC U-19 Cricket World Cup and now finishing it up with a magnificent domestic first-class season for Punjab, Shubman Gill ambitions the sky as he looks forward to another exciting chapter in his young cricketing career with a sight towards an Indian cap.
Coming on the back of some tough runs scored in New Zealand for India A, Gill began this Ranji Trophy season with a double hundred against Tamil Nadu before playing another fantastic knock in an unlikely run chase of 338 from just 57 overs on the final day versus Hyderabad.
Gill now tallies 536 runs at an amazing average of 134 including the highest score of 268 earlier this month in Mohali.
"I just played my natural game, attacked depending on the delivery offered to me. I tried to read the situation as best as possible, tried to rotate the strike as much as possible and kept the target within reach," Gill told CricketNext, as he felt delighted with that wonderful effort in Hyderabad.
"My long innings were due for some time. I was getting 60-70s, my conversion rate from the 50s to 100s had come down a lot as well."
"So I told myself before the season that I need to go for more hundreds. In my last nine innings in first-class cricket, I had seven fifties, so I knew I had to change something," the 19-year-old added.
Gill also gave credit for his success to the Kolkata Knight Riders, who bought him in the IPL auctions this year and retained him for the next edition as a reward for some very good performances in the middle-order.
"A lot of credit for my development goes to the time that I spent with KKR. I have been working with coach Abhishek Nayar in their camps," said Gill who scored 203 runs batting under tough circumstances for KKR, "He always motivates me and we are always trying to keep in touch."
"I have made no technical changes, just working on the mental aspects. I keep telling myself to carry on and score big hundreds."
The prodigious talent even thanked the Indian domestic cricket legend Amol Mazumdar for his invaluable support and guidance during an Under-19 batting camp at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru.
"Before the match against Tamil Nadu in Mohali, I met Amol Muzumdar. He told me that, ‘Your name is in the reckoning, but you need to post big scores.’ It really hit me, I am really happy that I was able to live up to his expectations," the astonshingly capable Gill concluded.
