'I was touched by that gesture' - Gill shares an MSD anecdote

Gill is having a blast in ODIs in 2022 (PC: Twitter)

The emergence of Shubman Gill in the past year or so has just been identical to that of Virat Kohli prior to the  2011 World Cup. These two batters have a lot in common. Both of them were once young prodigies and fast-tracked after the Under-19 World Cup. And lastly, they were backed by the legendary Mahendra Singh Dhoni in their initial career.

Gill, who is currently with the Indian squad in New Zealand, made his international debut in the first ODI against the Black Caps in 2019. However, that was a dreadful tour for a young 19-year-old batter who could just score 9 and 7 in his two outings.

The 23-year-old, who will most probably make his T20I debut on this tour, shared how MS Dhoni encouraged him during his failures. 

Here's what Gill stated

"The day I made my debut, I was dismissed when India were around 15. I was sitting outside and was sad having scored just 9 runs in my debut. So Mahi bhai came and saw that I was very sad. I was then around 18-19 years old. He told me at least your debut was better than mine,

"I realised he was dismissed for golden duck in his debut. He did not face a single ball and was run out. Then he started laughing and joking and I was touched by that gesture."

Gill has now become an integral part of the Indian ODI setup. With the next World Cup coming up, the Punjab batter will be running neck-to-neck to the prolific Shikhar Dhawan; as the latter has been having a dry spell in the Indian outfit of late.

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