Ishan Kishan’s double century in ODIs was eclipsed by Shubman’s record-breaking 208 on Wednesday, giving India another double century player to brag about less than a month later in the series opener against New Zealand. The current India captain Rohit Sharma is the only batter to have accomplished the feat three times in his career, making Gill the fifth Indian on the select list. An old tweet from Rohit Gill about Michael Bracewell’s frightening 140-run knock surfaced on the social networking platform shortly after the big knock, which helped the Men in Blue to a pretty close victory.
It couldn’t have been more appropriate. Gill, who broke Ishan’s record on Wednesday, became the youngest player in ODI history to reach a double century. The feat had previously been accomplished by the legendary Sachin Tendulkar before Rohit broke it in 2013 against Australia with a 156-ball performance. It was the first of three such blows he would receive; the other two would come in 2014 and 2017.
Rohit therefore has a greater understanding of what it takes to score a double tonne in the 50-over format than anyone else who has played the game. Even though he must have congratulated him for the win following the game, Rohit’s previous tweet from 2020 serves as the best summary of Gill’s accomplishment. Gill had taken to Twitter to wish Rohit on his 33rd birthday. He had written, “Well no one does pull shots better than the #Hitman Happy Birthday! @ImRo45.” Rohit replied saying, “Thanks future.”
However, during their conversation on BCCI.tv, Rohit revealed that he had a detailed statement regarding Gill’s knock. “The way you constructed your innings was superb to watch because on the other side we were losing wickets at regular intervals. It is not easy for a set batsman to continue batting in a similar fashion with wickets falling on the other end,” Rohit said to Gill in a video posted by BCCI. “Our next best score is 34 after your 208, and that tells you a lot how well you batted,” he added.