Shubman Gill exclusive: ‘I had to detach part of my personality that was only happy with success in cricket’

Ever since he was adjudged the ‘Player of the Tournament’ at the under-19 World Cup in 2018, Gill has been earmarked to continue India’s tradition of producing world-class batsmen. It wasn’t just wishful thinking when fans and pundits mentioned his name in the same breath as Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli.

He did live up to expectations. In the epic India vs Australia Test at Brisbane in 2021, it was Gill’s blazing 91 that put India on the path of an incredible triumph.

But something strange would happen after that high, something he was not used to in life: relative failures in Test cricket. He averaged just 26.50 till the end of 2022. The boy, who had never failed for three knocks in a row at any level at any age-group, was suddenly saddled with doubt.

Gujarat Titans captain Shubman Gill at the the Maharaja Yadavindra Singh International Cricket Stadium in Mullanpur. (Express Photo by Kamleshwar Singh)

“Definitely, it felt strange. I felt disconnected with the sport at one point. Even when I was doing well, I wasn’t feeling great. I would feel I had missed out on the last three-four games, that I had to do well in the next four games. And the joy in doing well in that one game was missing. I wasn’t enjoying the good thing,” Gill told The Indian Express a couple of days before selectors left him out of the T20 World Cup team, slotting him as one of the three travelling reserves.

“It has taught me so much. In order to get out of it, I had to change as a person. I had to detach a part of my personality that was only happy with success in cricket. Ki khush tabhi hounga, jab run ban rahen hain mere (that I will only be happy when I score runs),” says Gill.

“If this kind of mundane mentality continues, then bahut mushkil hai (It is very tough). Cricket is a game where you are not going to get 100s. If I am only happy with a 50 or a 100, then … I don’t want to lead a life like that,” Gill pauses and stares across the Zoom screen, right into his device’s camera lens, at you. The pouring out of the philosophy and the ever-so-natural gaze, not at the pixelated faces on the screen but right into the mechanical eye, startles. Old wisdom and a youngster’s natural affinity with the digital era roll into each other seamlessly.

He is not done yet, tracing his attitude to the world around him. “Indian culture is so success-driven. From inception, childhood, this happens, right? Simple things like, say a kid likes chocolate, he will get it only when he gets high marks. That you can only be happy if you are successful. Otherwise, you don’t have the right to be happy, almost. Success is very much equated with happiness.” He pauses, looks up at the lens, then at you to see if you are following him, and then continues.

A cursory look as an outsider would throw up bewilderment at why that phase was even considered a failure by Gill. “Yes, people would tell me, ‘Arre! You are just 22, already playing for India and in the IPL, aur kya chahiye? (What else do you want)’. But my mind was always fixated on those performances as I wasn’t just used to it all.

“It takes a lot of time to learn how to break that habit, especially when you have seen so much success, then you derive happiness only from that. There is no option… but that’s life.”

To understand, perhaps we have to rewind to his earliest memory in life. “Batting with my family; that bat is my earliest memory. If you ask me at what point I thought cricket would be my life, it’s simple: There was no such specific moment of realisation. I always knew since I was a kid that cricket was going to be my life. There was nothing else.”

Gujarat Titans’ captain Shubman Gill celebrates his half century during the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 T20 cricket match between Gujarat Titans and Punjab Kings at the Narendra Modi Stadium, in Ahmedabad, Thursday, April 4, 2024. (PTI Photo)

Born to play cricket for India. A feeling that’s alien not just to most fans but even to those who play competitive cricket. “You see, I was eight and playing in under-16 or whatever. And doing really well. I never played with boys my own age. As I kept progressing, I kept scoring. It was normal.”

All the unusual occurrences seemed normal to him. Like the family of large landowners uprooting themselves from village Chak Kherewala near Jalalabad in Fazilka district of Punjab to go to Mohali for him to pursue his cricket. “I thought that’s what parents do. It didn’t even strike me until I saw a few players at the academy and later that parents can also stop some kids!”

He would occasionally look at older cricketers and wonder what if. “By the time I was 16-18, the players I had played with over the years were 27-28 and not in the state team, not in the cricket loop. I would occasionally wonder that I wasn’t studying, all the focus was on cricket, what would happen to me. Then I would tell myself, chalo koi nahi (don’t worry), I can always do farming, my father is a landowner. But these were very rare moments.”

He was too busy being in a deep relationship with cricket for reality to break in. The love was triggered by his father throwing him balls to hit on the large corridor in the village when he was four. The passion grew a year later when his father would pay Rs 100 to anyone who could get the kid out. The obsession flowered under the watchful eyes of former India cricketer Karsan Ghavri, who ran a bowling camp at the PCA cricket stadium in Mohali. “My serious cricket began with Ghavri sir. He really helped me a lot. The bowlers were about 20 years old or so, and I was very young. He was so patient with me, he kept talking to me about how to approach different bowlers, how to develop game awareness.” The Ghavri stint also helped the boy aim higher.

The mind goes back to a chat Gill had with The Indian Express in 2018. He was 18 then. “Jaise bhi ho, India ke liye khelna hai (Whatever it takes, I want to play for India),” he had said, adding his favourite pastime was to hit CricketArchive, an archival website for even obscure cricket games, to check the scores of Virat Kohli at the corresponding age.

He had said then that he had never failed for three knocks in a row and so when asked what would happen if he ran into poor form, he had replied: “Socha nahi! (Haven’t thought), I would handle it then.”

In 2021-2022, he was forced to answer that question and he struggled to cope. It’s when Team India coach Rahul Dravid and batting coach Vikram Rathour entered the picture. Dravid is at home in these discussions. He was the coach of the India under-19 team when Gill was part of it. He would always talk about life outside the playing arena. And now with Gill in the senior team, the talk would veer to the lived experiences of young players without much first-class experience.

“We, the young who belong in that category, don’t know how to deal with failure at that level. Rahul bhai and Rathour paaji would say how it’s different for players who break in after years of first-class experience. They would have already faced ups and downs there and know the cycle. We don’t. They would talk about the importance of a good mental space when runs aren’t coming.”

India’s batter Shubman Gill celebrates his century during the third day of the second Test match between India and England, at Dr Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium, in Visakhapatnam, Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024. (PTI Photo)

Gill pauses to take a sip of water. And proceeds to digest his own wisdom. “What was going on with me when the runs weren’t happening was this: I would start thinking there is a fault in my batting. Most of the time it’s not, but you are either thinking about the next ball or what just occurred on the previous ball. Either the past casts a shadow or you are overthinking about the next ball. If you are just in the present, very rarely can any ball take you out. But that’s the challenge,” he says, as a smile creases his face.

For a while, and it rears its head even now, a ball tailing in from a full length would trouble him. Raised on cement tracks in the village in his developmental years, the backfoot play came naturally to him. The success in Australia, then, wasn’t a surprise with the bounce there and the bowlers’ tendency to hit back of a length on those pitches. The fuller ones that would upset his balance, draw him forward, a move that doesn’t come that naturally to him, has been exploited by good seam bowlers around the world. But more than that, as he says, overthinking about the past-and-future would drag him into a guessing game that clouded his present.

A boy who hardly yielded the 100 rupees on his wicket when he was five was now riddled with doubts. Despite everyone telling him all was well with his world, he knew that the breakthrough had to come from within.

He remembers a pivotal chat with his childhood best friend Khushpreet, a fellow cricketer, who has been throwing balls at him since the age of 8 and been a confidant since he can recall.

“We had a long talk and I remember telling him that even if I don’t get to play in matches, even if I just get to practise, I will be a happy man. I love practising. That conversation was a kickstarter. I found love in training,” Gill says.

India’s batter Shubman Gill celebrates his half century during the third day of the second Test match between India and England, at Dr Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium, in Visakhapatnam, Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024. (PTI Photo)

The pair just had to cast a look at their childhood. “From the age of eight till I turned 14 and became a regular in the U-16 and U-19 circuit and played a lot of games, I would train for six or seven hours a day — three hours in the morning, a lunch break at the academy in the Mohali ground, then three more hours. Sometimes, even eight hours.”

The lunch would involve his father going to a streetside cart outside the ground. “A patties-wala used to be there. So patty, kulcha, anything that could be eaten quickly and I could return to batting,” Gill basks in the glow of #ThrowbackThursdays.

Post the introspection and rediscovery of the love of practice, Gill arrived at his batting philosophy, his mantra.

“I want my body to take control of my mind. Not my mind taking control, seeding in self-doubt or getting carried away. Because I have practised so much for so many years, I want my body to take control of my mind. Let the muscle memory kick in. Jo dimaag baar baar bol raha hai — aisey nahi, aisey… (the mind that throws in doubts, saying not ‘like this but like this’) has to be silenced. That’s my challenge: how to let the body control the mind. Use the mind to tell itself to stay quiet.”

Gill goes quiet. With the confidence that Gill, the batsman, is exceptionally self-aware of his strengths and weaknesses, we turn to Gill, the youth icon. Older cricketers often don’t understand the younger lot and their relationship with social media. But for Gill and the younger lot, it’s not work; it’s almost an extension of themselves.

Gujarat Titans’ Shubman Gill celebrates scoring fifty runs during the Indian Premier League cricket match between Gujarat Titans and Lucknow Super Giants in Ahmedabad, India, Wednesday, May 7, 2023. (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki)

“I am very clear about it,” says Gill. “Yes, there is a lot of trolling and I can see why it can be a torment, I use it only as fun. I don’t take anything seriously on social media. It’s for fun, keep it for fun. Then no problem.”

There are other youngsters from around the country who look up to him to solve their problems. He is already more than just a cricketer. An icon. How does he see that responsibility? He immediately corrects.

“I don’t see it as a responsibility but if I can help anyone in a positive way — grooming, discipline, ethics, punctuality … if I can inspire them in any manner, there is nothing quite like that.”

Gill, the boy who thought the passionate pursuit of the game by his family was the most natural thing to do, the youngster who felt the rollercoaster ride of international cricket was unnatural, is now growing into an adult who seems to be at peace with himself and the vicissitudes of the world.

He now knows the journey is itself the destination, and it won’t be a surprise if he realises that the T20 World Cup selection blip is just a speedbreaker to negotiate, not the end of the road.