Legendary Sunil Gavaskar feels Shubman Gill might miss the big clash against Pakistan at the Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad on Saturday. Gill has re-joined the team in Ahmedabad but his participation is still unclear.
Before the start of the ongoing World Cup, Gill tested positive for dengue and missed India’s opening match against Australia and then didn’t travel with the team to Delhi for the second game against Afghanistan.
Gill had a one-hour net session on Thursday and it will be interesting to note the management call on his selection.
“Well, I think it depends on tomorrow (Friday). He had a net today. How his body holds up is going to be the key. He will himself know whether he is fit. Here, there is no hiding, no hiding in the sense. If you bat first, you might be able to say you have an injury and not come out to the field. But as a batter, if you are not going to be able to bat 40 overs because you don’t have the strength… you might have that little bit of weakness, you are not doing your team a favour,” Gavaskar told India Today.
Gavaskar added if Ishan Kishan (47) and Shreyas Iyer (25*) had not scored runs against Afghanistan, then India might have thought of playing Shubman Gill despite him being not fully fit. Furthermore, Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and KL Rahul are in fine form for India.
“When you talk about how much you need him, at the moment Sharma has got a hundred, you have got Kohli and Rahul who have nearly got hundreds. Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer have batted well. Really there is no cause for worry. If yesterday, against Afghanistan, if Ishan Kishan had not done well and Shreyas Iyer had not done well, then you would have said, okay he is 80, 90, 70 percent, let’s take Shubman Gill with the kind of form he has been in. But this is a big game against Pakistan. And so it’s going to be touch and go. My feeling is he will not play,” he added.
Gill has scored 1230 runs in 2023 and he has been in terrific form. Furthermore, Gill has a fantastic record while playing at Narendra Modi Stadium, Ahmedabad, the home ground of his IPL team – Gujarat Titans.
