Things change dramatically in T20s. Two openers, hailed as the next batting superstars from India across formats, have seen this from close quarters. In their case, it’s been lows after highs. Captain of the Indian team to Zimbabwe last July, Shubman Gill was not even in the squad when India last played this format. Part of the 2024 T20 World Cup side, Yashasvi Jaiswal is in similar space.
Gill and Jaiswal came to the Indian Premier League (IPL) last year on the back of stellar outings against England in the five-match Test series at home. Gill, the Gujarat Titans captain, and Jaiswal, the Rajasthan Royals opener, had a quiet tournament. They didn’t completely flop. Nor did they set the stage on fire. The T20I careers of these two players have followed a similar trajectory since.
Gill wasn’t picked for the T20 World Cup, while Jaiswal didn’t get a game despite being in the squad. The retirement of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli brought them back in the frame. Gill and Jaiswal got games in Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka, before losing their places in the national team for the shortest format. Sanju Samson and Abhishek Sharma pulverised the bowlers of South Africa, Bangladesh and England to cement themselves as the first-choice duo.
Seasoned by now although just 25 and 23, Gill and Jaiswal have seen enough to know that things don’t take long to change. They themselves were in the thick of it not even a year ago. Their performance in Zimbabwe and Sri Lanka were not abysmal either, until the extreme force unleashed by Sanju and Abhishek reduced them to outsiders. Having seen this topsy-turvy nature of T20s, Gill and Jaiswal know that the tide can turn again.
Going by changes like handing over the captaincy to Suryakumar Yadav, making Arshdeep Singh, Tilak Varma and Ravi Bishnoi T20 specialists, it seems the team management has started looking ahead. The next T20 World Cup, to be played in India and Sri Lanka, is a good 18 months away. That’s a long time in sports. Gill and Jaiswal have seen their T20 fortunes oscillate in a far shorter period.
Gill has a strike rate of 139 and an average of 30, with a century and three fifties, in 21 T20Is. Jaiswal strikes at 160-plus with an average of 36. In 23 games for India in this format, he has one century and five fifties. These are enviable records for openers aspiring to make it to any other national team. By some quirk of luck, the T20 graph peaked, plateaued and plummeted for this left-right combination in the blink of an eye.
Sanju and Abhishek struck the ball at a more beastly rate to snatch the opening slots away. In these conditions, going by a horses-for-courses policy, this left-right firing squad remains better bets because of the unprecedented mayhem they are causing. The two played big parts in India amassing totals like 297, 283 and 247 since last October. Wicketkeeping gives Sanju another advantage.
The advantage for Gill and Jaiswal is, they have seen the ups and downs. They know the feeling of ‘what goes up, comes down’. Helping players get used to both sides at a young age is a less-observed feature of T20s. It makes the tough ones tougher. For India’s discarded T20I openers, the time is ripe to do what they can to the best of their abilities. After that, it’s a question of being patient.
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