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India's 1983 World Cup winner Kris Srikkanth has launched a brutal attack on Shubman Gill following his batting fiasco in the recently-concluded Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024-2025. Kris Srikkanth also labelled Gill as a 'highly overrated cricketer'.
Gill had an impressive debut series in Australia during the 2020/21 season. However, since then, his form has seen a major dip in overseas conditions. He has struggled for consistency, averaging a mere 17.64 across 18 innings outside of Asia. During this period, Gill has failed to reach the 40-run mark even once.
Kris Srikkanth blasts Shubman Gill
This poor form was evident in the recent 2024/25 Border-Gavaskar Trophy which only added to his batting woes, where he recorded scores of 13, 20, 1, 28, and 31. He managed to score a total of 93 runs across five innings. His highest score was 31, achieved in the pink-ball Test at the Adelaide Oval. Since his Test debut at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in 2020, Gill has played 32 Tests, accumulating an average of just over 35 runs per innings.
“I’ve always maintained that Shubman Gill is an overrated cricketer but nobody listened to me. He is a highly overrated cricketer,” Srikkanth said on his YouTube channel.
Srikkanth also questioned the selection committee's decision to persistently back Shubman Gill despite his prolonged lean patch outside of Asia. He is also surprised at team's reluctance to explore other options, contrasting Gill's extended opportunities with the case of Suryakumar Yadav. Suryakumar, after a single Test appearance against Australia in Nagpur, was promptly dropped from the Test squad and has since been primarily utilized as a specialist in limited-overs formats.
“When Gill is getting this much of a long rope, some people might wonder whether even players like Suryakumar Yadav could have been given a longer rope in Tests. Suryakumar didn’t have a very good start in Tests but he has the technique and he has the ability. But the selectors and the management have now boxed him into a white-ball specialist. So that means you have to look at fresh talent,” Srikkanth added.
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rikkanth rather wants Indian team management to consider Ruturaj Gaikwad and Sai Sudharsan. He believes that both these players possess the talent and potential to contribute to the team and should be given opportunities ahead of Shubman Gill in the current scenario.
“Ruturaj Gaikwad, for example, has been doing wonderfully in first-class cricket. But they’ve not bothered to pick him. Meanwhile someone like a Sai Sudharsan has been lighting it up in ‘A’ tours. You have to promote these kind of talents. Instead they are running around circles by picking Gill,” Srikkanth further stated.
“Gill is right now surviving because he gets ten chances and scores on the tenth chance after nine failures. And because of that, he is getting another ten chances to succeed. Anyone and everyone can amass runs on Indian wickets, The challenge is scoring away from home in SENA countries and that’s where players like KL Rahul pass the test,” he concluded.
