Before Suryakumar, Shubhman Gill was appointed as the captain for India’s tour of Zimbabwe for a five-match T20I series. Gill was appointed as the vice-captain for the t20I and ODI series later on.

Before being named the vice-captain, Gill was appointed as the captain of the Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Gujarat Titans (GT).
Keeping that in mind, former India star Suresh Raina stated that if GT won the IPL, Gill would then be India’s future captain.

“Shubman Gill is a superstar. Gill is vice-captain it means someone is thinking about him. If he does well in the IPL and win the trophy he is the future (captain). He will be the next super star,” Raina told PTI.

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Though Steve Smith, Mitchell Starc, Nathan Lyon, Josh Hazlewood and Alex Carey named Yashasvi Jaiswal to be the next rising star, Travis stated that Shubhman will be ‘an absolute freak’.

“Some of his (Gill’s) innings I have seen. He makes bowling look slow. Plays off the front and back foot well, plays spin well. Shubhman is gonna be an absolute freak,” Travis said in a video posted by Star Sports Tamil.

Jaiswal & Gill தான் #TeamIndia-வின் அடுத்த Super Stars – Australian Players👏 #BorderGavaskarTrophy #ToughestRivalry #BGTOnStar pic.twitter.com/o4I7FoES3M

— Star Sports Tamil (@StarSportsTamil) September 15, 2024

Travis had earlier expressed that even after their dominance in the last decade with two consecutive series wins on Australian grounds, India are not favourites when talking about conquering the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.

“I don’t feel like they’re my favourite. I just feel like we play them enough, play them lots. And, I guess the last couple of years I’ve been in nice form. So yeah, being able to, to play well, it’s always nice,” Travis said.

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The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has implied a new format for the Duleep Trophy, dropping the original zonal structure. Teams A, B, C, and D will compete in a round-robin format. The team with the most points gathered by the end of tournament will be crowned as the winner. One thing to be noted is that there will be no knockout stages in this season of the competition.

Venues For the tournament:

The Duleep Trophy 2024-25 will be held across 3 venues:

The Rural Development Trust Stadium and ACA ADCA Ground in Anantpur, Andhra Pradesh, and the M Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru.

Squads for the tournament:

To ensure the national team being prepared for the challenges arriving soon, BCCI made it mandatory for domestic players to take part in Duleep Trophy. Though Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah and R Ashwin have been exempted from the tournament to avoid the risk of an injury before the Bangladesh series.

Duleep Trophy this season will feature Shubhman Gill being the captain of Team A, Abhimanyu Easwaran being captain of Team B, Ruturaj Gaikwad being captain of Team C, and Shreyas Iyer being captain of Team D.

Teams for the tournament:

India A: Shubman Gill (C), Mayank Agarwal, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel (WK), KL Rahul, Tilak Varma, Shivam Dube, Tanush Kotian, Kuldeep Yadav, Akash Deep, Khaleel Ahmed, Avesh Khan, Prasidh Krishna, Vidwath Kaverappa, Kumar Kushagra, Shaswat Rawat.

India B: Abhimanyu Easwaran (C), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Sarfaraz Khan, Rishabh Pant (WK), Musheer Khan, Nitish Kumar Reddy*, Washington Sundar, Navdeep Saini, Yash Dayal, Mukesh Kumar, Rahul Chahar, R Sai Kishore, Mohit Awasthi, N Jagadeesan (WK).

India C: Ruturaj Gaikwad (C), Sai Sudharsan, Rajat Patidar, Abishek Porel (WK), Suryakumar Yadav, B Indrajith, Hrithik Shokeen, Manav Suthar, Gaurav Yadav, Vyshak Vijaykumar, Anshul Khamboj, Himanshu Chauhan, Mayank Markande, Aryan Juyal (WK), Sandeep Warrier.

India D: Shreyas lyer (C), Atharva Taide, Yash Dubey, Devdutt Padikkal, Ishan Kishan (WK), Ricky Bhui, Saransh Jain, Axar Patel, Arshdeep Singh, Aditya Thakare, Harshit Rana, Tushar Deshpande, Akash Sengupta, KS Bharat (WK), Saurabh Kumar.

Schedule for the tournament:

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While Gill was initially an opening batter, he then changed his ways and secured 3rd place of lineup. Although he faced challenges in the home series against England earlier this year, Gill managed to make a change in his pace and scored two centuries.

Before the first round of Duleep Trophy 2024, Shubhman expressed his will to improve his Test performances with the upcoming series of 10 matches against Bangladesh, New Zealand, and Australia. Gill believes that these matches will provide him with valuable opportunities to reshape his skills and raise his game to new heights.

“Yes, I’ve not been up to my own expectations ([n Test cricket],” he said, as quoted by PTI.

“But we have ten Tests coming up together. Hopefully, after these ten Tests end, I’d be up to my expectations or more,” Gill added.

Gill also said that he had dedicated a lot of efforts to improve his defence against spinners. He stressed that this was a main area of focus for him in the England series, where he wanted to improve his ability to counter spin balls.

“I worked on my defence a little bit more especially against the spinners. Playing on turning tracks, you should be able to defend a lot more. Then you play scoring shots. With more T20 and playing on batting friendly tracks in the white ball, I feel it takes away a little from your defensive game over a period of time. So that was my focus during the England series,” he concluded.

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Taking in consideration their performance against England in their last Test, Karthik said that both Gill and Sarfaraz will be in place of senior players Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane.

Both Pujara and Rahane worked as the backbone of India during Tests against Australia in the last two occasions, along with Rahane coming out as the highest run-scorer in last edition of World Test Championship (WTC) final against Australia.

“Shubman Gill and Sarfaraz Khan. Both of those batters have done really well against England in the home series that recently happened at the start of the year. I have a feeling both of them will definitely be on that flight to Australia and will be trying to do their best. We will know if they’re able to replace both Ajinkya and Pujji (Pujara). Big shoes to fill, but they have the quality and calibre in them,” Karthik said.

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In the video, Kohli calls Shubhman as talented but also states that there is a huge difference between ‘showing promise and becoming a legend.’ Kohli also said in the clip that there is no ‘Next Virat Kohli’ and made his comparison to Sachin Tendulkar.

The reality is Virat Kohli did not give any such interview or made any such statement over Gill. The clip has managed its way on X, and is said to be a work of Artificial Intelligence (AI) generated end eventually deemed as a fake video.

AI is Dangerous pic.twitter.com/njUvwiwc4t

— Cricketopia (@CricketopiaCom) August 27, 2024

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Basit said that by keeping Babar at the top spot, the ICC might be knowingly preventing Babar from performing. He further raised some concern covering the overall logic of their ranking system, pointing out the absence of prominent batters like Travis Head (AUS) and Rachin Ravindra (NZ) from the top positions.

“When I saw the ICC ranking (ODI batters), Babar Azam was at the top, number two was Rohit Sharma, number three was Shubman Gill, and then there was Virat Kohli at number four. I did not find it necessary to read the remaining names because I couldn’t see Travis Head and Rachin Ravindra. I think the ICC wants that Babar doesn’t perform. He would be happy with being the number one-ranked batter in ODIs. Who gives these rankings? On what basis are Babar Azam and Shubhman Gill there,” Basit said.

“Babar’s last ODI was at the last year’s World Cup. We saw the likes of Rachin Ravindra, Quinton de Kock, Travis Head and Virat Kohli at the World Cup. They scored three-four hundreds in the tournament. For Pakistan, Mohammad Rizwan and Fakhar Zaman scored a century each. What kind of ranking do they give,” he further added.

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Former New Zealander Scott Styris has termed SuryakumarYaadav as a short-term option for T20I captaincy under the new head coach Gautam Gambhir. Styris does not see Surya leading India for a long time in the format and feels Shubhman has been given vice-captain to take over the captaincy after a while.

“Look, a vice-captain is just someone who is learning all about the leadership and how to run a cricket team. I have no problem with Shubman Gill being vice captain. He captains in the IPL. He captains a lot of big names, so there’s not an issue with that,” Styris said

“It’s more the long term picture. What it says to me, with Hardik Pandya not being captain, all the senior players retiring. Maybe Gautam Gambhir just doesn’t see a natural leader at the moment, which is why he’s gone for for Suryakumar Yadav as almost like a bridge or a temporary captain for a year or two. And then maybe Gill steps in in that role in a couple of years time.”

“Shubman Gill has a lot of growth yet to do in his own game. We’ve seen some really high quality performances for India, but it’s now about consistency across those three formats. So it’s almost like letting him learn how to be a captain. We’ve got an eye on you in the future, but at the moment we still just want you to concentrate on your cricket.”

Though Styris sees Surya as a short-term option, he also feels that the management is buying time till they find a captain who could be staying long term.

“I think he’s a short-term option. I don’t think Gambhir has a natural captain amongst the players that he has right now. So, he’s buying himself time as to who will be the next long-term captain.”

“You know, someone like Gill I think could do the job for 10 years for India, but he’s not quite ready right now, so I think it was a really smart decision to bring in someone with a bit more experience. Someone like Suryakumar make him captain. If he does a decent enough job, then he might be the captain at the next T20 World Cup. And then after that, you can look at Gill or any of the other potential options around. But yeah, I think it’s a really clever decision,” said the 49-year-old.

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Gill mad his captaincy debut for India earlier this month when the side toured Zimbabwe for 5 T20Is. the first game of the series was a massive set back as India failed to chase down a 116-run target, but the side showed great determination to make a comeback and win the series 4-1. After a slow start, Gill had a good chance with the bat, as he scored two half-centuries in the series.

India’s former batting coach Vikram Rathour, who was with the team until last month when the side won T20 World Cup, spoke about Gill’s promotion in detail, welcoming the charge. Rathour said that the added responsibility will be beneficial for the young opener.

“Whatever I have seen of him, be it for the Gujarat Titans or in Zimbabwe, he did a good job. He has shown terrific body language, which is a must if you are leading a side. Now with the vice-captaincy, the BCCI has given him extra responsibility, and I am sure he will thrive in this role,” Rathour was quoted.

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Gill’ tactics in finishing the game and not allowing Jaiswal to complete his century raised many doubts, but the young batter wasn’t disturbed by any of it. in fact, Jaiswal revealed that the only conversations he was having with gill was how to finish up the game quickly and win by 1- wickets.

“I really enjoyed playing today. It was an amazing experience with Shubman. Of course, whenever I play for India, I feel proud. We were thinking about how to finish the game and make sure to win it for the team. The only thought running through our mind was to get the game over with and win by no wickets lost,” Jaiswal said.

The third T20I against Zimbabwe was the first match of Jaiswal for India after four months. Jaiswal last starred in the test series against England in March, finishing it with over 700 runs. He then had a dim IPL 2024 season with Rajasthan Royals, but was selected in India’s T20 World Cup squad of 15. However, leaving aside the warm-up tie against Bangladesh, Jaiswal did not play any other match, resulting in India opening with Virat Kohli along with Rohit Sharma. while this disappointment is proximate, Jaiswal is ready to exchange it with he outcome of India emerging as the World Champions.

“I just enjoyed my process and being part of the champion Indian team. I learnt a lot, and I was really excited that whenever I got a chance, I would try my best. Make sure that I am contributing and winning the game for my team,” said Jaiswal.

Although like some of his teammates, Jaiswal did not play any domestic cricket, he stressed on the importance of going back to his roots. “Playing domestic helps a lot. There are a lot of advantages. You can prepare and get ready for the matches. Domestic games are really important for us. We really enjoy playing it,” said Jaiswal.

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