Former India opener Aakash Chopra has lauded current India batter Shubman Gill for his recent run of very good form in all three formats of the game and said that the Punjab opener was no longer the future of Indian cricket, but he is now the present.
Shubman Gill had scored his maiden Test hundred in Bangladesh in December last year and then scored his maiden double-ton in ODIs against New Zealand. To add the cherry on top, he scored a century in the third and final T20I against the Kiwis to complete the trifecta.
Many feel the 23-year-old is the future of Indian cricket, but Chopra feels otherwise. Speaking on his YouTube channel, the former opener said that Gill is the 'present' of the Indian team.
"We used to say that Shubman Gill is the future of Indian cricket, now we have started saying that he is the present of Indian cricket. His potential was seen when he went to play in the Under-19 World Cup. He started playing well and asked people to watch him because he has something special," said Chopra on his YouTube channel.
Chopra said that he was skeptical about Gill when he made his Test debut in Melbourne on the 2020-21 tour of Australia, but the opener has proved his doubters wrong.
"If we see the last one year, we can start from the IPL, because he batted very well there as well, but what he has done in the last three months is something else. He has struck a sequence of centuries. By doing all that, he has said that he is here to stay," said Chopra.
"What is special in him? The first thing is that he has the gift of timing which a lot of other players don't have. Either you have it or you don't. This guy has it. After that, he is really pleasing to the eye. It is very difficult to say how, but some players look very good when they are playing. They are just elegance, poetry in motion. You never see him struggling. He is just total elegance and because of that, you get attracted towards it," added Chopra.
Gill is expected to be part of the Indian XI for the first Test against Australia in Nagpur starting on February 9.
(Sportskeeda inputs)
