Live blog commenting for old live blog ::Shubman Gill’s pursuit of perfection: How Indian captain put in serious hours to prepare for English Test and came out trumps
It was IPL time, he was training on what seemed like a ‘dicey’ pitch – some balls flying towards his face, others darting at his ribs. Shubman would stop training, dump the white balls back, ask for a shiny red new one. His quest to ace Test cricket in England began in earnest.
It was about a month before he was to take the most important flight of his life to Heathrow, London, for his first assignment as India’s Test captain at 25. On one gloomy day in Chandigarh before Shubman Gill came to England, England came to Shubman Gill.
It was IPL time, he was leading the Gujarat Titans and having nets on what seemed like a ‘dicey’ pitch – some balls flying towards his face, others darting at his ribs. Shubman would stop training, dump the white balls back in the kit bag, and ask for a shiny red new one, the kind used for Test matches. Even while playing IPL, Shubman wasn’t missing a chance to be England-ready.
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Gujarat Titans’ assistant coach Naeem Amin is based out of London, and he was there to witness Shubman’s quick ball-switch. “And the bit that you will find interesting was him keen to practice just against a new ball. As soon as the new ball would become a little bit old, he’d change it for another new ball,” says Amin. As India’s new Test No.4, Shubman knew that after facing the white-ball on flat tracks, he had to deal with the swinging-seaming red cherry in England.
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