India vice-captain Shubman Gill finally returned to action in the first T20I of the five-match series against South Africa on Tuesday. Notably, the 25-year-old had missed the ODI series in its entirety and the second Test due to a neck injury. He had suffered the setback while batting in the first Test and didn't even come out to bat in India's second innings.
Gill recovered at BCCI's CoE
Gill then had to go to BCCI's Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Bengaluru in order to recover fully. He underwent rehab and was cleared in time for the T20I series. He opened up about the injury ahead of the first T20I and revealed that he had a kind of disc bulge in his neck that was hitting his nerves.
“Body feels perfectly fine. Spent a bit of time at the CoE and perfectly fine physically and mentally, feeling ready,” said Gill during a conversation with broadcaster Murali Kartik.
“I had a kind of disc bulge in my neck, which was hitting the nerves. When I went there, I had a bit of a spasm before the start of the play in the morning. And when I played the match, I think I got a strain on my neck and got a bulge which hit the nerves. And had to go to the hospital for a couple of days, but recovered well after that,” he added.
Gill's cheap dismissal in 1st T20I
However, Gill failed to step up to the expectations in the first T20I of the series and got dismissed for just four runs on the third delivery of India's innings. It was Lungi Ngidi who claimed his scalp. The batter tried to hit the ball over mid-off, but failed to get any sort of timing on his shot and chipped it straight to Marco Jansen who completed an easy catch. It remains to be seen who will come out on top in the series opener.
India's Playing XI for 1st T20I: Abhishek Sharma, Shubman Gill, Suryakumar Yadav(c), Tilak Varma, Hardik Pandya, Shivam Dube, Jitesh Sharma(w), Axar Patel, Jasprit Bumrah, Varun Chakaravarthy, Arshdeep Singh.
South Africa's Playing XI for 1st T20I: Quinton de Kock(w), Aiden Markram(c), Tristan Stubbs, Dewald Brevis, David Miller, Donovan Ferreira, Marco Jansen, Keshav Maharaj, Lutho Sipamla, Lungi Ngidi, Anrich Nortje.