Shubman Gill sometimes fails to find his rhythm on a slow pitch and this might be the reason behind his underwhelming show in the ongoing West Indies tour, former India opener Aakash Chopra opined.
Shubman Gill has found the going tough in the ongoing West Indies tour as after a below-par performance in the two-Test and 3-ODI series, he has not been able to showcase the same form in T20Is as well, which won him the Orange Cap in IPL 2023.
The talented opener also failed to score big in the World Test Championship Final.
Chopra also talked about the underwhelming show from Gill on the ongoing tour and pointed out that he was touted as the king after IPL 2023 but nothing went well for him after that.
“At this point, the problem is with Shubman Gill’s form. During the IPL, I read in many places that he is no longer the prince but the king. But after that, there was the WTC final, he didn’t score too many runs there, played two Test matches against the West Indies, didn’t score runs there," Chopra said on his YouTube Channel.
Chopra suggested that Shubman struggled on the slow surfaces where he found it hard to get his rhythm. Shubman Gill has scored 3, 6 and 7 in three T20Is thus far.
“Then he played three ODIs, where he scored one half-century and a score of 34. He has single-digit scores in all three T20Is. It seems like he hasn’t scored runs at all on this West Indies tour. I feel there is one thing with him for sure - when the pitches are slightly slow, he will find it difficult to find his rhythm," he added.
Chopra, who played 10 Tests for India, further said that openers get scrutinized the most as they have the opportunity to score more runs and Shubman has to keep that in mind.
“He will have to look into this because whenever you play as an opener, especially in white-ball cricket, you will be scrutinized the most. You will have the best opportunity to score runs but will be scrutinized the most as well. It gets highlighted very quickly when you don’t score runs," he added.
He further said that if Ishan Kishan can be dropped from the XI, then the team management should follow the same yardstick and drop Shubman Gill as well.
“We saw Ishan Kishan being dropped for the last match. If the same yardstick is used, Shubman Gill should also be dropped. But he won’t be because both are not going to be dropped together," he added.
India and West Indies will play the last two T20Is on August 12 and 13 in Florida.
