Bipin Dani
Gujarat Titans’ Shubman Gillmay have won the Player of the Match award for his unbeaten 63 runs (against Lucknow SuperGiants in Pune) on Tuesday but he is being brutally trolled by the fans for playing an extremely slow innings.
The 22-year-opener, who has also played 10 Tests and 3 ODIs was labelled as playing a “selfish” innings. “Shameful stapadding knock from Shubman gill, he really needs to work on his intent”, a twitterati wrote.
“Most selfish knock I saw this ipl season. He was not even trying to hit sixes till his 50 & also after that he was playing grounded shots!”, another one wrote. “Shubman Gill ka best contribution team ke liye tab hoga jab wo 10 over tak OUT ho jaye #GTvLSG (if he gets out in 10 overs, it will be a contribution for his team”, an angry fan wrote.
However, Shubman’s father, Lakhwinder Singh, who has been his mentor and childhood coach has defended the slow play.
“The batter has to play the innings looking at the wicket and the bowlers he has been facing. It was a very slow wicket and the ball was not coming up to the batters. He has also to see the wickets falling at the other end”.
“The same media would criticize if he loses a wicket while playing aggressively. My son also scored 96 runs. Had he been selfish, he would have expedited his innings to complete 100 (against Punjab Kings last month”.
The father also agreed with the argument that his son played faster than Sunil Gavaskar, who remained not out with 36 runs in 60 overs in the World Cup match.
“I have been coaching my son since he was 3. He plays with the situation”. According to Vikram Solanki, the Gujarat Titans director of cricket, Shubman Gill was “simply outstanding” in playing on a difficult Pune surface on which no other batsman from either team could manage even 30.
