It hasn't been a great space of a week for Shubman Gill. The star batter first lost his place in the Indian playing XI for the fourth Test match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy series, and now is likely to have lost the captaincy spot in Gujarat Titans for the 2025 season of the Indian Premier League (IPL). The latter, albeit only a speculation, was triggered after a six-word tweet from the Titans.
With India all-rounder Hardik Pandya making a shocking move back to Mumbai Indians from Gujarat in December 2023, the 2021 champions named Gill the new skipper. Under the youngster, for whom it was billed as an opportunity to prove his worth as a potential candidate to lead the Indian team in the future, Gujarat finished eighth in the table with just five wins in 14 matches.
Gujarat, on Wednesday, seemed to have dropped a subtle hint that they might be moving on from Gill for IPL 2025 and name a new captain. The post on X, formerly known as Twitter, read: "A clean slate. A new story." But that is not what sparked the speculation. The post also had a picture of Rashid Khan staring at the blank slate.
A look at Rashid Khan's captaincy credentials
Rashid captained only twice in his illustrious IPL career, both for Gujarat Titans. The first was in 2022 against Chennai Super Kings, which the team won, and the second in 2023 against Kolkata Knight Riders at Ahmedabad, the match that is otherwise remembered for Rinku Singh's last-over heroics against Yash Dayal, which they lost.
{{/usCountry}}Rashid captained only twice in his illustrious IPL career, both for Gujarat Titans. The first was in 2022 against Chennai Super Kings, which the team won, and the second in 2023 against Kolkata Knight Riders at Ahmedabad, the match that is otherwise remembered for Rinku Singh's last-over heroics against Yash Dayal, which they lost.
{{/usCountry}}Overall, he led 67 times in T20 cricket across six teams, including the Afghanistan national team, winning 34 of those games. He also led his national team in ODI and Test format, implying that if GT do make the change, they will have an experienced captain leading the side in IPL 2025.