Former Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin praised Shubman Gill’s leadership after India won by an innings and 300 runs in the one-off Test match against Afghanistan at New Chandigarh on Monday.
Ashwin said Gill was on the money while rotating his spinners throughout the Test match. Furthermore, Gill was able to lead from the front, scoring a magnificent knock of 126 runs off 177 balls and thus played a key role in helping India post a massive total of 564 runs on the board.
The Indian skipper was also spot on with his field placements and bowling changes throughout the Test match.
Ravichandran Ashwin said on his YouTube Channel, “His captaincy has come a long way in the last four months. It’s clear that as a captain, he’s learning and listening to the advice from the outside. Manav Suthar gets overspin, which means he won’t be as effective as the ball gets old. So Gill used him with the new ball. Then he bowled Kuldeep Yadav with the older ball and used Sundar against the left-handers.”
“Even in the second innings, when he could have gone back to Suthar with the old ball, he brilliantly went for Siraj and got a breakthrough. He also made Prasidh bowl straighter with a more leg side field. In the second innings, he used Kuldeep more to help him regain confidence because Kuldeep has had a poor last 18 months. He knows all these bowlers will be important, so he brought them all perfectly into the game.”
Ashwin hailed Gill for his impressive knock against the visitors. The former CSK spinner said Gill’s hunger while batting is on a different level now.
“I am noticing from the England series that his hunger when batting is on a different level now. Sometimes it’s hard to be motivated against Afghanistan, yet you still have to get the job done. The motivation to just kill them and be clinical is hard to find, but Gill did it to perfection. It’s not easy to motivate yourself against a team you know you are sure to beat,” said Ashwin (via the aforementioned source).
“He’s a special batter, and just the way the ball leaves his bat is special. He used to bring his bat down like a sword before and get hit on the pads. He tightened that aspect of his game from England and has just carried on since.”
Gill will next lead India in three ODIs against Afghanistan.
