Assured and calm Shubman Gill slowly making No.3 his own

Following into the footsteps of Cheteshwar Pujara and Rahul Dravid in the Test team can be scary. Veterans of over 100 Test matches, Pujara and Dravid are icons of Indian cricket, who brought in tremendous assurance with the bat at No.3 just in case the openers fumbled under pressure.
Pujara’s battles at the position are legendary and one of the most common tales that comes to mind is the 2020-21 Border Gavaskar Trophy where the right-hander took blows on his body, bruised his rib, batted with suspected concussion to record a historic victory for the Indian team.
Dravid, on the other hand, needs no introduction at all. 164 Test matches, 13,288 runs and the experience of facing 31,258 balls in Test cricket is unmatched to date.
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So when Shubman Gill put his hand up wanting to bat at the No.3 position in the team, people raised their eyebrows. And why not? Shubman looked settled in the opening spot alongside Rohit Sharma and had already played a memorable knock of 91 runs in the second innings in India’s famous victory at Gabba.
With the switch in place came pressure, pressure that made Shubman fumble for six straight Test matches over 6 months. Zero 50+ scores in the first 13 innings at No.3 meant that Shubman was about to get dropped from the Test team.
However, a resilient Shubman Gill stood tall. The turnaround came in the second innings against England in the Vizag Test match, where Gil scored 104 runs. The player did not look back even once after that.
Shubman started piling on runs and scored at least one 50+ score in every Test match after that. In fact, the batter now has 737 runs at No.3 from 19 innings, at an average of 46.06, much better than his career average of 37.46.
Speaking about Gill, former India cricketer Abhinav Mukund lauded the player’s ability in the first Test match against Bangladesh. Mukund said Gill was confident while asking for the No.3 position in the Test team and after initial blues has managed to return to his own standards.
“He was very assured yesterday as he allowed the ball to come to him and that is the reason why he plays very heavy shots and plus he was timing it brilliantly. Usually, you try and hit the ball hard and you lose your shape and you don’t allow the ball to come to you. But Shubman Gill did not do that. He used his spin really well against spinners. I thought he was outstanding the way he hit those pull shots and cut shots,” said Abhinav Mukund on Jio Cinema
“Already he has scored three centuries at number 3. You spoke about it at the tea time show where you know you said that India’s number three was Cheteshwar Pujara and before that, it was Rahul Dravid. Remember that Shubman Gill has asked for this position where he put his hand up, that shows how confident Shubman Gill is,” he further added.
Former Bangladesh captain Tamim Iqbal praised Shubman’s calmness and pointed out the batter’s maturity in claiming milestones.
“I really liked about his innings is that he was playing his own game. He wasn’t bothered about what was happening on the other end. He played his own game. Even I remember he was on a 99, he took a few balls. He could have easily come down the track and hit it for a six. He took what, 6,7,8 balls to get 100? Yeah, so it shows how calm he was,” Tamim said on the broadcast.
Gill already has 3 Test hundreds and 2 fifties at No.3. The batter is slowly and steadily making the role his own in the red-ball format of the game.