Shubman Gill has been on fire for Team India for quite some time now. The right-handed batter has made the most of the chances that have come his way and has lived up to expectations. The 23-year-old has scored three centuries in his last four ODI innings for the Men in Blue. Out of the three triple-digit scores, one is a double hundred that he scored against New Zealand during the first ODI of the three-match series between India and the Kiwi team in Hyderabad on January 18.
Shubman faced a total of 149 deliveries in that game to score 208 runs. In that match, he smoked 19 fours and nine sixes to register his career-best score. Before scoring three centuries in the last four matches, Shubman was getting good starts in matches but wasn’t able to really convert them into big scores. And upon seeing the trend, his father, Lakhwinder Singh, called him up and advised him to convert the 50s and 60s into big hundreds.
After the conclusion of the third ODI between India and New Zealand in Indore on Tuesday (January 24), Indian head coach Rahul Dravid interviewed Shubman and revealed his father’s advice to him when he wasn’t able to convert good starts into big hundreds.
The 50-year-old in a video uploaded by BCCI’s Twitter handle said, “So when Shubman was scoring a lot of 50s and 60s and batting well, but not really converting them into big hundreds. I think his father had said, ‘Shubman are you only going to show us a drizzle, or are you actually going to show us some rain and some thunderstorms?’ And I think his father will be glad that over the last month or so, what you have done is, you have really made it rain. So well done. Must make you and your dad really proud.”
Shubman, who has played a total of 21 ODIs to date, in which he has scored 1254 runs at an average of 73.76, scored nine 40-plus scores in his first 17 innings before scoring three centuries in his last four matches.
