Credit: Twitter
Gujarat Titans star batter Shubman Gill has been one of the best players at the IPL 2023 as he now holds the Orange cap with 851 runs with still one match to go. The 23-year-old GT opener has been the best batsman in 2023 so far with multiple hundreds in all the three formats to his name. The talent was first picked by Kolkata Knight Riders after his fantastic U19 World Cup campaign in 2018 but he was released in 2022, which was the ‘biggest blunder’ any franchise has ever made, according to former CSK all-rounder Scott Styris.
Gill was forced to play as a finisher at KKR in the middle order which is not his normal position but still impressed with good starts and a few good knocks. He scored 1417 runs with 10 half-centuries in 58 games for Kolkata. After being released in the mega-auction in 2021 he was picked by the new franchise Gujarat Titans outside the auction to be one of the key players of the team. He has paid them hefty dividends on their investment as he scored 483 runs in GT’s IPL 2022 title-winning run and owned the 2023 season with 853 runs with the Orange Cap.
Former NZ cricketer Scott Styris believes this decision from the KKR management is the biggest mistake from any franchise and added RCB’s release of KL Rahul is the only one comparable to this as he said, "I still believe that his release from KKR will go down as the biggest blunder a franchise has made. The only other one was KL Rahul from RCB. However, there is an age advantage here. Gill is still a very young man, he has got a lot of growth in his game."
Scott continued to heap praise on Shubman’s performance this year and said that he will be the ‘backbone’ of the Indian Cricket team for many years to come. Styris explained that Shubman has figured out how to convert his starts into big innings which was his problem at KKR. The stylish opener will get his chance to add to his tally as he will be in action for the IPL 2023 Final between Gujarat Titans and Chennai Super Kings on May 29th, Monday as the original day of the final (May 28) was washed out.