Indian opener Shubman Gill threw his wicket away by not opting to take the help of Decision Review System (DRS) in the third T20I of the series against South Africa. Gill was dismissed lbw by Keshav Maharaj in the third over. As the umpire raised his finger, Gill had a conversation with his opening partner Yashasvi Jaiswal who was not convinced that the DRS would help. As Gill walked back to the dressing room, the big screen showed that the ball would have gone on to hit the stumps. Reacting to the replay, India head coach Rahul Dravid looked disappointed with Gill.
After hitting two boundaries in the first two fours, Gill decided to play the sweep shot against left-arm spinner Maharaj. He was hit in front of the pad. The ball-tracking technology showed that the ball was missing the leg stump, not even clipping it.
Gill failed to justify his spot in the playing XI in the T20I series. In the absence of Ruturaj Gaikwad who was unavailable for the second T20I due to illness, he got out for a duck and then registered a single-digit score. The 24-year-old is yet to have a good run in T20Is. In the last seven T20I innings, he has scored just one half-century. He has recorded single-digit scores in the same number of innings.
From 13 T20I innings, Gill has scored one century and one half-century. His century came against New Zealand earlier this year in Ahmedabad. From 13 T20I innings, he has nine single-digit scores.
Gill does not have much time left to prove that he deserves the opening spot for the T20 World Cup 2024. He will have another chance when Afghanistan visit India for a three-T20I series in January 2024. If Rohit Sharma returns to the side, he may get benched.
Gill will also need to have a good Indian Premier League (IPL) 2024 season as a batter while leading the Gujarat Titans (GT). Gill was named the captain after Hardik Pandya went back to his former franchise Mumbai Indians (MI).
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