Former Indian head coach Ravi Shastri has backed in-form Shubman Gill to break Virat Kohli’s record for most runs in a single season. Kohli had amassed 973 runs while leading Royal Challengers Bangalore in IPL 2016 as he was batting in a beast mode during that time.
Meanwhile, Gill has been in terrific form in the recent past and scored a truckload of runs in the limited-overs series against Sri Lanka and New Zealand earlier in the year. The youngster also scored a fine hundred in the fourth and final Test match against Australia.
Gill has so far scored 116 runs in three matches for Gujarat Titans in the ongoing IPL 2023 at an average of 38.67 and a strike rate of 145. The GT opener had scored a fine knock of 63 runs off just 36 balls in the curtain-raiser against Chennai Super Kings at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad. Subsequently, he scored 14 and 39 against DC and KKR respectively.
Furthermore, Gill had scored 483 runs in 16 matches of IPL 2022 and had played an instrumental role in taking Gujarat Titans to glory.
“He has to be an opening batsman, because only then will he get many opportunities to score runs. I feel, it is Subhman Gill because he is in good form and also because he plays top of the order. So he will get good number of opportunities to score runs. The pitches are good, so if he can score 80-100 runs consecutively in two or three innings, then at that point of time only he will already have 300-400 runs,” Shastri said on Star Sports.
“According to me, it is very difficult to break the record, because 900 plus runs is huge but one thing is opening batsmen will get two extra matches and two extra innings, so opening batsmen can only break this record if it is possible,” he further added.
Gill has been batting like a dream and he would want to keep up the good show in the upcoming matches.
Shubman Gill has scored 2016 runs in 77 IPL matches at an average of 32.52 and a strike rate of 126.24. Gujarat Titans will next face Punjab Kings at the IS Bindra Cricket Stadium, Mohali on Thursday.
