Ashish Nehra Confident: Just a few months back, the Indian T20I team was at its peak and a dominant side in world cricket. However, in current times the Indian team looked opposite of how it was in previous times. With the start of Asia Cup 2025, Shubman Gill made his way into the Indian team as vice captain of the team, due to which Sanju Samson was dropped into the middle order and Rinku Singh didn’t even make it to the squad.
Since the time Gill made it to the T20I team, he failed to perform as per the expectations, and currently many questions are being raised on his spot in the Playing XI. In the first two T20Is against South Africa, Gill failed to score runs by getting dismissed for 4 and 0.
Ashish Nehra Confident On Shubman Gill
Meanwhile, the 26-year-old Gujarat Titans coach Ashish Nehra showed his support, stating that patience is something that is required at that time.
In a recent interview, Nehra stated that Gill should not be judged on the basis of a few poor performances and time should be given before judging him.
Nehra said,
“Look, the player you are talking about. If IPL were 3 weeks away, I wouldn’t be worried. Because you are talking about the T20 format. And there are only 2 matches played with South Africa. If I am not wrong. And this is our problem. In such a fast-paced format, whether it is international cricket or IPL, if we start evaluating players like Gill after two or three matches, then it will be difficult.”
“You have many options, if you want to see. You can remove Abhishek Sharma and Shubman Gill. You can open with Sai Sudharsan and Ruturaj Gaikwad. If you want to remove them, you can do it with Washington Sundar and Ishan Kishan. So options are always there if there are talks about changing players after not good stats, but aise karege to bahut mushkil hogi (If we do this like this, then it would be difficult).”
“Saw Some Good Signs Of Change In Shubman Mentality”: Ryan Ten Doeschate
After India’s defeat in the second T20I against the Proteas, Team India assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate showed his support towards Gill, stating that the youngster has a lot of quality and it’s just a matter of time.
But if we look at Sanju Samson’s record, then he smashed three T20I centuries last year; hence, it is believed that he would be a good opener for Team India. However, since the time Gill made it to the team, Samson has been sidelined.
He said,
“I saw some good signs of a change in mentality on the back end of the back end of that Australian tour (in Shubman). Even with these two dismissals in this series, in the first game we asked the guys to go out and attack on the powerplay, and the wicket was not very great at Cuttack.”
“So I will let him go off with that one. Today, he got out to a great ball. This can happen when you are short on form. But we also believe in his class. If you look at his IPL records, he has stacked 600-700-800 runs, and he will come good.”
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