India’s young batting talent Shubman Gill made his Test debut against Australia down under in the Boxing Day Test at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG). He played brilliantly on his debut scoring 45* as India won the match by 8 wickets.
He made his maiden Test fifty at Sydney and then played a match-winning 91 in Gabba, Brisbane as India pocketed the series 2-1 and retained the Border-Gavaskar Trophy. He made 259 runs in three Tests for India.
Shubman Gill will be back to scoring runs in the WTC Final - Deep Dasgupta
“As long as the fielding lasted, I was pretty normal. But when we finally batted, and I was taking a walk down from the dressing room to the pitch with the crowd cheering (backing the Aussies, nevertheless), it was an experience of a kind! It felt like going into a war!” Gill told his IPL franchise Kolkata Knight Riders’ official website.
Gill was given his Test cap by head coach Ravi Shastri and recalled the moment saying, “It’s inexplicable. At times you go through a sea of emotions which just make you go numb. It was that kind of a moment. Ravi Shastri gave a speech in the huddle and then I received the cap from him. After that, we won the toss and elected to field first.”
“When I was a kid, I used to get up at 4.30-5 am to watch Test matches in Australia. Now people are getting up early to watch me play, that’s quite a feeling. I still remember my father used to wake up early and so would I just to watch the Australia series,” he says about his dream of playing in Australia.
“It was a different kind of fun to watch Brett Lee bowl or Sachin sir (Tendulkar) bat. All of a sudden, I was playing in that team and Australians were bowling at me. It felt surreal that the world was watching me. I was really looking forward to the challenge and always wanted to play in Australia to experience how it feels,” he said.
Shubman Gill also spoke about the lessons learned during the Australia tour.
“No matter what, you can’t rule someone out of a scenario. We had so many injuries but the dressing room positivity never changed. We got all out for 36 and despite that, not for once our players or our coach or our captain and even the support staff felt bogged down or intimidated to such an extent that we didn’t know what to do next,” he said.
“As I had said before if they want to play chin music, we have got all the dance moves ready!” he signed off.
(PTI inputs)
