In the last two months, two budding youngsters of Indian cricket entered the elusive 200-run club in ODIs. First, in December, Ishan Kishan plundered the fastest ever double century in history to join a list comprising Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag and Rohit Sharma before Shubman Gill became the latest entrant in the league. Ishan’s 210 against Bangladesh in Chattogram and Gill’s epic 208-run knock have forced the world take notice of their calibre and only increased India’s headaches for the World Cup. Ishan and Gill are both openers by trait and while the two youngsters have shown appreciation for the other, the battle to partner Rohit Sharma will only get interesting in the time to come. The India captain has backed Gill over Kishan – which forced Ishan to miss the three ODIs against Sri Lanka – but if the last few years are any indication, things change within the blink of an eye in Indian cricket.
Gill and Ishan are on a high, and have a long road ahead. However, Sunil Gavaskar has cautioned the two against getting too complacent after their record-breaking twin double centuries. In the past, Indian cricket has seen cases where players have faded after a sparking start to their careers such as Rajesh Chauhan, Karun Nair, Laxmipathy Balaji, SS Das to name a few and Gavaskar hopes Gill and Ishan’s name don’t add to this list.
“In the last one month or so, there have been two double centuries cracked by Indian batsmen in one-day internationals. Both were magnificent innings by young men brimming with confidence and with a huge future ahead of them. They are in their early 20s, so what they make of the future is entirely up to them. Will they keep their head and feet on the ground after these stupendous knocks or are they going to get carried away so much that they think that all that they have to do is to just turn up at the crease and the runs will flow by automatically,” Gavaskar wrote for Mid-Day.
The India legend hailed the fearless nature of youngsters today in the team, and pointed out that it stems from the fact that there are other avenues where cricketers can go and express themselves – the most prominent being the Indian Premier League. Gavaskar feels performances in the IPL tend to erase memories of failures at the international level, which he hopes isn’t the case with Gill and Ishan.
“Today’s youngsters are super confident, and that’s a wonderful thing. The worry of being dropped from the national team doesn’t enter their minds as they have the cushion of an IPL contract. Therefore, failure doesn’t scare them and they can go out and play what is popularly known as fearless cricket when it is actually worry-free cricket. When being dropped from the national team is not a worry then a player can go out and play bindaas cricket for there’s always the IPL with its minimum 14 matches in which to make people forget the international failures,” added Gavaskar.
