Two young Indian cricket players just joined the illustrious 200-run club in ODIs. Prior to Shubman Gill joining the league, Ishan Kishan scored the fastest double century in history in December, joining a list that also includes Rohit Sharma, Virender Sehwag, and Sachin Tendulkar. The world has been compelled to take note of Ishan’s 210 against Bangladesh in Chattogram and Gill’s spectacular 208-run innings, which has only made India’s World Cup problems worse. Ishan and Gill are both natural openers, and even though the two young people have expressed their mutual respect for one another, the competition to bat alongside Rohit Sharma will only get more fascinating in the future.
Ishan was forced to miss the three ODIs against Sri Lanka because the India captain supported Gill over Kishan, but if the past few years are any indicator, things can change in Indian cricket in a heartbeat. In good spirits, Gill and Ishan still have a long way to go. Sunil Gavaskar, though, has warned the two to avoid becoming too smug following their record-breaking twin double century. Rajesh Chauhan, Karun Nair, Laxmipathy Balaji, and SS Das are just a few examples of players in Indian cricket who have faltered after a promising beginning to their careers. Gavaskar hopes Gill and Ishan’s names don’t join this list.
“In the last one month or so, there have been two double centuries cracked by Indian batsmen in one-day internationals. Both were magnificent innings by young men brimming with confidence and with a huge future ahead of them. They are in their early 20s, so what they make of the future is entirely up to them. Will they keep their head and feet on the ground after these stupendous knocks or are they going to get carried away so much that they think that all that they have to do is to just turn up at the crease and the runs will flow by automatically,” Gavaskar wrote for Mid-Day.
The India great praised the fearlessness of today’s team’s young players and noted that it results from the fact that cricketers have other forums to express themselves, the most well-known of which is the Indian Premier League. Gavaskar hopes that Gill and Ishan’s success in the IPL will prevent memories of failures at the international level from being erased.
“Today’s youngsters are super confident, and that’s a wonderful thing. The worry of being dropped from the national team doesn’t enter their minds as they have the cushion of an IPL contract. Therefore, failure doesn’t scare them and they can go out and play what is popularly known as fearless cricket when it is actually worry-free cricket. When being dropped from the national team is not a worry then a player can go out and play bindaas cricket for there’s always the IPL with its minimum 14 matches in which to make people forget the international failures,” added Gavaskar.