With his impressive performance in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023, experts have drubbed Shubman Gill as the next big thing in Indian cricket. The promising batsman has scored 851 runs in 16 matches including three centuries in the ongoing edition of the IPL so far.
Gill is only the third cricketer after Virat Kohli and Jos Buttler to have notched up more than 800 runs in a single edition of the IPL. However, legendry all-rounder and former World Cup winning India captain Kapil Dev doesn’t want to put him in the bracket of Sunil Gavaskar, Sachin Tendulkar and Virat Kohli yet.
As per Kapil, the Gujarat Titans (GT) opener needs to have a couple of more seasons like this in order to be considered a great cricketer.
“I will like to give him another season before making big claims. He definitely has the talent but I won’t like to make big comparisons right now. He needs to have one more season like this before we can say he is the next in line after Gavaskar, Sachin and Kohli. Bowlers get to know your strengths and weaknesses after one or two good seasons. But if you have three or four good seasons then we can say he is truly great,” Kapil said during an interview.
Giving Vinod Kambli’s example, Kapil said Gill’s real test will be when his purple patch gets over.
“Don’t get me wrong. I have no doubts in Gill’s abilities. But without making comparisons, I would like to talk about one cricketer - Vinod Kambli, who probably had an even better start to his international career. The biggest question in front of Gill now will be that will he be able to handle himself and cope with all the attention and fame that he will be getting at this young age,” said Kapil.