‘You can remove Abhishek Sharma and Shubman Gill…’: Ashish Nehra launches passionate defence of GT captain

Roll the time back six months. The Indian T20I team was the envy of the world, with the side playing a completely different brand of cricket, piling the runs for fun. However, the team opted for an overhaul of some degree, as Shubman Gill made his way back into the Asia Cup squad as vice-captain, which led to Sanju Samson falling down in the batting order and Rinku Singh being sidelined from the playing XI. Now, in present, Samson finds himself on the bench, and Rinku is not even a part of the squad.

However, Gill has failed to set the stage on fire, and there is plenty of doubt over his spot in the playing XI. In the first two T20Is, Gill has lasted just three balls in the middle, being dismissed for 4 and 0 in Cuttack and Mullanpur. The daggers are out for the 26-year-old; however, his Gujarat Titans coach Ashish Nehra has shown his support, saying that patience is the need of the hour.

Speaking to news agency PTI, Nehra said that Gill cannot be judged on the basis of a few poor performances and time needs to be given for him to come into his own.

“Look, the player you are talking about. If IPL was 3 weeks away, I wouldn’t be worried. Because you are talking about T20 format. And there are only 2 matches played with South Africa. If I am not wrong. And this is our problem. In such a fast-paced format, whether it is international cricket or IPL, if we start evaluating players like Gill after two-three matches, then it will be difficult,” said Nehra.

“You have many options, if you want to see. You can remove Abhishek Sharma and Shubman Gill. You can open with Sai Sudharsan and Ruturaj Gaikwad. If you want to remove them, you can do it with Washington Sundar and Ishan Kishan. So options are always there if there are talks about changing players after not good stats, but aise karege to bahut mushkil hogi (If we do this like this, then it would be difficult),” he added.

Team India shows support

After the comprehensive defeat in the second T20I against the Proteas, Team India assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate showed his support towards Gill, saying the youngster has a lot of quality and it’s just a matter of time before he comes good.

It needs to be mentioned that Samson had smashed three T20I centuries last year hence many believed that he would be a sure shot starter in the playing XI. However, Gill’s inclusion has led to the Kerala batter eventually being sidelined.

“I saw some good signs of a change in mentality on the back end of that Australian tour (in Shubman). Even with these two dismissals in this series, in the first game we asked the guys to go out and attack on the power play, and the wicket was not very great at Cuttack,” ten Doeschate told reporters.

“So I will let him go off with that one. Today, he got out to a great ball. This can happen when you are short on form. But we also believe in his class. If you look at his IPL records, he has stacked 600-700-800 runs, and he will come good,” he added.