Shubman Gill: ‘It was a mixed IPL for me’

The 19-year-old Gill, who played for the Kolkata Knight Riders, scored 296 runs in 14 matches, with 76 as his highest score.

Shubman Gill of Kolkata Knight Riders with the Emerging Player award in Hyderabad on Sunday.

Young Shubman Gill, who won the Emerging Player of the Year award in the IPL, dubbed the season a mixed one and said it didn’t pay off whenever he tried to do something extra.

“I think it was mixed kind of (IPL) season for me because I was not opening in the first half, and then I got an opportunity to open and then I went back and again opened. The kind of opportunities I got I tried to capitalise on all of them,” Gill said on the sidelines of the CEAT Cricket Rating Awards.

“The learnings for me in this particular IPL was that whenever I tried to go over the top or I tried to do extra, it didn’t really pay off well, but whenever I was myself and trying to have some fun and playing my game, it paid off for me,” the young right-handed batsman explained.

The 19-year-old Gill, who played for the Kolkata Knight Riders, scored 296 runs in 14 matches, with 76 as his highest score.

Gill has made his ODI debut for India against New Zealand and he is looking forward to score for India A, and again grab a berth in the Indian team.

“What I am really looking forward to is, now we will have some India A series and I want to really capitalise on those (opportunities), be in the series and score lot of runs and then fortunately get an opportunity in the Indian team and then I want to really establish myself there (in the Indian team),” the flamboyant opening batsman said.

A lot of former cricketers have touted the Firozpur-born Gill as the next big thing in Indian cricket.

“These kind of talks only matter to you once you are out of the ground. When I am in the ground, going there to bat, these things don’t come to my head. My only focus is who I am playing against and how I am going to score runs,” he said.