Shubman Gill has done injustice to his talent in last few games: Salman Butt

Shubman Gill was one of the standout performers in the first half of 2023 but the latter half didn't go the way he would have envisaged. After scoring his first Test century against Bangladesh in December 2022, Gill went from strength to strength in the early goings of 2023. Against New Zealand, the Punjab batter scored his first ODI double-century in January and also amassed his maiden T20I ton in February. Records kept on tumbling as Gill showed exactly why he is touted as one of the future superstars in world cricket.

As the year went along, Gill exhibited remarkable consistency in the ODI format but his performances in T20Is and Tests didn't do justice to his potential. After the T20Is against the Kiwis, Gill's next assignment for India in the shortest format of the game was in the Caribbean. In five matches, he scored just 102 runs, 77 of them coming from just one innings. He was rested for the T20I series against Australia before registering scores of 0 and 8 in the two T20Is he played in South Africa last month.

However, he returned to the side for the ongoing T20I series against Afghanistan. In the first T20I, he scored a delightful 12-ball 23 but was subsequently dropped in favour of Yashasvi Jaiswal for the second game. Former Pakistan captain Salman Butt stated that Gill hasn't lived up to his billing and explained what he needs to do to find success.

"I think Shubman Gill has done an injustice to his talent in the last few games. He is too good a player and has too much skill for the kind of hurry that he has been showing. He scores 20-odd and then plays a loose shot. This is what he wasn't doing when he had a successful year. He just needs to bat and bat without doing anything special. He needs to realise that even if you are the best batter in the world, you can't play every ball on your own terms. You have to react to the ball instead of dictating it," Butt was quoted as saying by Hindustan Times.

How have Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal fared so far in T20Is?

In 14 T20Is, Gill has scored 335 runs, at an average of 25.77 and a strike rate of 147.58. He has one fifty and one century to his name. On the other hand, Jaiswal has amassed 498 runs from 15 innings, averaging 35.57 with a strike rate of 163.82. In the second T20I, the southpaw grabbed his opportunity with both hands as he scored a scintillating 68 off 34 balls. The Mumbai batter has four fifties and a century to his name.

With the return of veterans like Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli and the excellent form being shown by Jaiswal, it seems that Gill will have to wait in the wings for quite some time before a comeback in the playing XI. India have already bagged the three-match T20I series against Afghanistan with a game to spare. The final T20I is set to take place in Bengaluru on Wednesday, January 17.