Gill was promoted to a leadership role for India earlier this year.
A couple of years ago, not many would have expected Shubman Gill to be leading India in Tests. The Punjab youngster was averaging around 40 with all four of his hundreds and three half-centuries coming at home since the beginning of 2023.
The only overseas hundred he had scored since his debut in 2020 came in Chattogram against a below-par Bangladesh attack. Gill was averaging 29 in overseas Tests until the England series. He had scored only 367 runs from 14 innings in the last two years.
His failures in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-25 also made former India captain Krishnamachari Srikkanth label him ‘overrated’ in the red-ball format.
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Gill’s elevation to vice-captaincy in the ODI format for the Champions Trophy 2025, followed by his appointment as the Test captain after Rohit Sharma retired from the format, has sparked a fervour within the 25-year-old.
In two Tests as the Indian captain, Gill has scored 424 runs from three innings. He made a brilliant 269 in the first innings of the second Test at Edgbaston as he became the third Indian to have a double ton in England.
This ability to lead the team by example was identified by former Indian captain and head coach Rahul Dravid. He had seen Gill come through the ranks of Under-19 cricket.
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Former India pacer RP Singh, who was part of the Indian team that won the 2007 Test series in England under Dravid’s captaincy, said that the legendary batter had predicted that Gill would be India’s captain way back in 2021.
“I was talking about a lot of things to Rahul bhai about the next big fast bowler and then about the next captain. I asked him, ‘Who do you think will be India’s permanent captain?’ You had Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya as the big candidates back then, but he replied, ‘Shubman Gill.’ This was before he had become the head coach. I told him, ‘He is not playing all three formats, leave it.’ But he said, ‘There’s a lot of potential within him. If not today, he will play all formats and will become the captain,” RP Singh revealed on Sony Network.
True to Dravid’s prediction, Gill not only became the captain but he also joined the veteran and Sunil Gavaskar as the third Indian to have a double hundred in England.
He also surpassed Virat Kohli for the highest individual score by an Indian captain in Tests.
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