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Cricket Players'Things came to a boil with Gill. I contemplated having a word with Ravi Shastri…': Ex-India coach's staggering remark
The former India coach, who was a member of the staff headed by a number of head coaches, described how he used to get the newer players settled into their roles.
The abundance of talent within the Indian cricket system has meant that a number of players have made their debut in the last few years. Getting the new players settled in has hence been one of many responsibilities that the Indian coaching staff had to deal with in this period. R Sridhar had been with the team as a fielding coach since 2014 up until the time that he stepped aside along with the rest of the staff headed by Ravi Shastri after the 2021 T20 World Cup.
Apart from Shastri, Sridhar also worked under Anil Kumble and Duncan Fletcher, who was the head coach of the side when he was first appointed in the role. Sridhar has described in his autobiography 'COACHING BEYOND: My Days with the Indian Cricket Team' his experience with some of the newer lot of debutants, among whom was Shubman Gill.
Sridhar said that this generation of players seem to think of themselves as a "finished product" as fielders when they came into the Indian team and were a bit more reluctant to put in the hard work as compared to their predecessors. He said that he had got KL Rahul to field at silly point and short leg when he was not keeping back when the opener had broken through in 2014. "But the mindset is different in the guys coming in now. Some are just not very willing to put in the hard work," he says in the book.
He then took the example of Gill during England's tour of India in 2021. Gill had become a sensation after making his Test debut in the 2020/21 Border-Gavaskar Trophy, where he played a famous knock of 91 in the Gabba Test. However, in the next series, Gill couldn't replicate the success scoring just one half-century, but it wasn't just his batting that was causing India headaches.
"In Ahmedabad, during the last Test against England in March 2021, things came to a boil with Shubman. I contemplated having a word with Ravi about it but held my horses and took him out for lunch instead," writes Sridhar in the book.
"I told him, 'You are considered the next big thing. People are looking at you from a leadership perspective. As a future leader, the one thing you should bring is inspiration. You should have a presence on the field and when you do something you must do it with intent. It is not just doing it for the sake of the team. Do it for yourself. Do it for your satisfaction, not because the captain wants you there. What you do there should be an inspiration for the whole team."
Gill's position in the team is now far stronger than it was back in 2021. He has cemented himself as India's preferred opener in ODIs alongside Rohit Sharma after a string of extraordinary performances recently, which included a historic double century in the first ODI against New Zealand.
