India’s original Test squad for the Bangladesh tour had only six specialist batsmen. In a clear indication of how highly he was being rated by the selectors and team management, Shubman Gill was the reserve opener, and was also being looked at as a middle-order option, thus ruling out the need to pick a seventh specialist batsman.
It is another matter he wouldn’t have got a look-in if captain Rohit Sharma hadn’t got injured, and then, would have likely had to sit out the Dhaka Test had Rohit recovered in time, despite scoring a maiden Test century in Chattogram.
But now that Rohit has been ruled out of the second and final Test starting on Thursday, it provides Gill another opportunity to keep pushing his case to eventually become a first-choice option for India.
That he will become so at some point, appears beyond doubt at this stage. When exactly he will become so, also depends on how the remaining careers of some of the incumbents play out. Given one or the other World Cup cycle always seems to be starting or ending, team transitions in the two white-ball formats tend to occupy the bulk of the attention, but India are gradually approaching a generational handing over of the baton in Tests too, especially in the batting department.
Rohit will be 36 in a few months, and has been spending considerable time in the injury ward in recent times. After the upcoming Australia home series, India’s next major Test assignments will be a South Africa tour next December, immediately followed by a five-match visit by England in early 2024. Those are at least a year away, and the 2023 World Cup will be done by then. The 2019 World Cup ended the international career of one of India’s all-time greats, MS Dhoni. Who knows how many farewells this one will bring? At any rate, whatever happens will likely impact the Test side too.
Meanwhile, Cheteshwar Pujara has made a successful comeback after being left out for the Sri Lanka home Tests earlier this year, but he will be on the wrong side of 35 from next month as well.
And while he may not be as injury-prone as Rohit, he is certainly no Virat Kohli either in terms of fitness, so any expectations of sustained longevity henceforth should perhaps be tempered.
Even among those with age on their side, Shreyas Iyer can’t really be said to have firmly established himself in Tests. He’s played only six games so far, and even on a lifeless surface on which Bangladesh’s last innings stretched to 113.2 overs, Iyer continued to have problems with the short ball. A massive test awaits against the Australian bowling attack.
This team management has had limitless time for stand-in skipper KL Rahul, but his average of 36.77 as opener puts him way down at 45th out of the 61 openers who have played at least as many Test innings – 70 – as he has had. Gill has enough potential, and has arguably done enough so far in a short international career, to have been handed a sizeable rope, even if not one that is as lastingly long.
Someone who cracked that epic 91 in his debut Test series against the Australians in the historic chase at the Gabba was bound to get his share of chances sooner or later. Since his debut, Gill has been part of 12 of India’s 21 Tests in that period, and it was his shin injury last year that took away some opportunities. He wasn’t treated as well in ODIs, making his debut at the start of 2019, then getting his next chance at the end of 2020, and then getting ignored again until the West Indies tour in July this year. But how well has he grabbed this belated opening. Since his comeback, he has averaged 70.88 at a strike-rate of 102.57 in 12 ODIs.
Which is why the recent string of soft dismissals appeared uncharacteristic. Since his early years, Gill has been known to be the sort of batsman who will more often than not cash in when the opportunity is there to score big runs.
But twice in New Zealand, he flicked balls off his pads straight to fielders after getting starts in difficult conditions. Against South Africa at home earlier, he kept falling to incoming deliveries but that was due to his reluctance to get really forward, which is an unavoidable drawback of his backfoot-oriented game. Even in the first innings in Chattogram, he had batted himself in for 40 deliveries before giving it away with a top-edged sweep.
But he made amends in the second innings. Even if there is a Test hundred for the taking against a deflated opposition, it has to be actually taken by the batsman (as Sunil Gavaskar might say), and Gill did exactly that. It is a year in which he has got that maiden-hundred monkey off his back in both ODIs and Tests.
These are early days yet but for a top-order Test batsman, he already scores at a faster tempo than both Kohli and Rohit. And his perceived suitability to the middle order is further enhanced by the fact that he does not get tied down by spinners, and is instead often looking to unsettle them and score runs by moving down the track.
Against the seamers, he did take an initial step across in Chattogram but he would start on leg stump, thus still ending beside the line, which helped him combat the slowness of the surface, and maintain a wider range of scoring opportunities through the off side.
“There is something regal about him,” former India head coach Ravi Shastri had said during the recent New Zealand tour. Gill has always given that feeling to watchers; it doesn’t take more than a few deliveries to realise he’s an extraordinary talent. Now, he’s started forcing the decision-makers to give him a primetime slot. It can’t be too far away.
India's Shubman Gill score celebrates after scoring fifty runs during the first Test cricket match on day third between Bangladesh and India in Chattogram Bangladesh, Friday, Dec. 16, 2022. (AP Photo/Surjeet Yadav) 
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