On Monday, November 27, Gujarat Titans made an announcement that Shubman Gill will be the new captain of the franchise, starting from the Indian Premier League (IPL) from the 2024 season onwards. The decision from GT has come after their captain for the past two seasons, Hardik Pandya, decided to leave them, to move back to Mumbai Indians, where he started his IPL career in 2015.
The appointment of Shubman Gill as captain by Gujarat Titans might come as a surprise to a few, especially when the franchise could have given the responsibility to someone like Rashid Khan, who was the vice-captain for them last season. Also the likes of Kane Williamson, the former New Zealand T20I captain, and Matthew Wade, the current Australia T20I captain, are there in the GT squad, but still, the team management decided to look at the long-term future to give the captaincy to the 24-year-old.
With that, SportsTiger looks at three reasons why Shubman Gill could be a good captain for Gujarat Titans in the IPL.
Scoring consistent runs in IPL and international cricket
Shubman Gill has been one of the most prolific run scorers at the IPL and international cricket in the last year or so. During the last season of the IPL, he scored a whopping 890 runs in 17 matches including three hundreds for Gujarat Titans, while he put together an incredible run of hundreds in all formats for Team India too.
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Age factor
In the sport of cricket, captaincy is one of the most unique roles for any cricketer, in which they need time to get to terms with the responsibility before stamping their authority on it. In the case of Shubman Gill, at 24 years of age, the time is on his side as the captain of the Gujarat Titans to work out the best possible ideas and strategies in his bid to take the franchise to the next level on the field.
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Experience in captaining teams in Duleep and Deodhar Trophy
During the ICC U19 Cricket World Cup 2018 winning campaign of India, Shubman Gill was the vice-captain of the team, playing a major role in bringing home the coveted trophy. Since then, in 2019, Shubman Gill was given an opportunity to captain the India Blue team in the Duleep Trophy and the India C team in the Deodhar Trophy.
