"The future is here," Virat Kohli had exclaimed in February when Shubman Gill had smashed an unbeaten 126 in a T20I match. It was preceded by three other centuries, including a double hundred, all in ODIs, and succeeded by a century in the Border-Gavaskar series. Gill, continuing his sublime form in 2023, reached his maiden triple-figure mark in IPL as well on Monday during Gujarat Titans' comfortable win in Ahmedabad against Sunrisers Hyderabad.
Moments after 58-run knock of 101 that helped Gujarat win by 34 runs and cruise to the playoffs with a guaranteed top-two finish, a picture of Gill with Kohli went viral all over social media. The year was 2016 and it was a BCCI awards night. Having managed to get a picture with Kohli, who had just received the first of his four Polly Umrigar Awards, Gill later had posted it on his Instagram account writing, “With my idol.”
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When Gill was later asked in an interview with ICC in 2021 about that meeting with Kohli, he had said: "It's so inspiring to be with someone like Virat Kohli and he's been my idol since when I started playing cricket. Obviously, when you are a kid you don't know much about it (cricket), you just want to play it for the fun of it but as you start playing you learn more about the challenges and a lot more about the game [itself]. And he's someone I have always looked up to. This was the first time I met him in Mumbai, so it was a pretty big moment for me."
{{/usCountry}}When Gill was later asked in an interview with ICC in 2021 about that meeting with Kohli, he had said: "It's so inspiring to be with someone like Virat Kohli and he's been my idol since when I started playing cricket. Obviously, when you are a kid you don't know much about it (cricket), you just want to play it for the fun of it but as you start playing you learn more about the challenges and a lot more about the game [itself]. And he's someone I have always looked up to. This was the first time I met him in Mumbai, so it was a pretty big moment for me."
{{/usCountry}}On Monday, after collecting the Player of the Match award, Gill reiterated the same "idol" remark in a smashing tribute to Kohli during a conversation on Star Sports.
“When I was 12-13 years old I followed Virat Kohli bhai the most, he has been my idol since I started understanding cricket. I learned a lot from Virat bhai. His batting & passion & commitment motivates me,” Gill said.
While Gill became GT's first very centurion in IPL history and also the first to get to 1000-run mark, the outstanding part of the knock was that the youngster became the only Indian batter ever to score a hundred in all three international formats and in the IPL in the same year. Mahela Jayawardene (2010) and David Warner (2019) are others to achieve this rare feat.