Shubman Gill and Ishan Kishan are on a high, and have a long road ahead but Sunil Gavaskar has cautioned the two against getting too complacent after their record-breaking twin double centuries.
In the last two months, two budding youngsters of Indian cricket entered the elusive 200-run club in ODIs. First, in December, Ishan Kishan plundered the fastest ever double century in history to join a list comprising Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and Rohit Sharma before Shubman Gill became the latest entrant in the league. Ishan’s 210 against Bangladesh in Chattogram and Gill’s epic 208-run knock have forced the world take notice of their calibre and only increased India’s headaches for the World Cup. Ishan and Gill are both openers by trait and while the two youngsters have shown appreciation for the other, the battle to partner Rohit Sharma will only get interesting in the time to come. The India captain has backed Gill over Kishan – which forced Ishan to miss the three ODIs against Sri Lanka – but if the last few years are any indication, things change within the blink of an eye in Indian cricket. Gil and Ishan have reached their peak and have a long way to go. But Sunil Gavaskar, after his record-breaking two centuries, warned the two not to get too complacent. In the past, Indian cricket has seen cases of players declining after brilliant career starts, such as Rajesh Chauhan, Karun Nair, Laxmipathy Balaji and SS Das.
“In the last month or so, the Indian hitter has doubled his century in his one-day internationals, both great innings for a confident young man with a bright future ahead of him. They’re in their early twenties, so what they do with the future is entirely up to them.Do they keep their heads on the ground after those massive beatings, or are they crazy enough to think they have to get closer to the crease? Will the run automatically fly away?” Gavaskar wrote for Midday.
The Indian legend praised the fearless nature of today’s youth within the squad, noting that this was due to the fact that cricketers have other means of expressing themselves, most notably The Indians are his premier in his league. Gavaskar thinks performances at the IPL tend to erase memories of failure at the international level, but hopes that’s not the case for Gill and Ishan.
“Young people today are very confident and that’s great. They have the cushion of an IPL contract so they don’t have to worry about being kicked out of the national team. Failure therefore does not scare them away and they are able to go out and play what is commonly known as fearless cricket, even though it is actually carefree cricket. Players can go out and play Binders cricket if expulsion from is not an issue. Because the IPL has at least 14 matches, people forget about international failures,” added Gavaskar.