India began the ongoing home Test series against England in a horrible way as they suffered a 28-run defeat in Hyderabad in the series opener. While chasing 231 runs in the fourth innings, their batters failed to England’s spin trio trap, particularly Tom Hartley. However, it was a good effort by the batters in the first innings but then, there was Shubman Gill who failed to score significant runs in both essays.
The young batter has made a reputation for scoring big runs, while his career is still at an early stage. Recently, however, fans have witnessed a huge dip in his form across all three formats. Gill’s last 50-plus score came in November 2023 against New Zealand in the ODI World Cup semi-final at Wankhede – an 80 not out. Since then, he has played one ODI, three T20Is, and three Tests. Gill has scored 132 runs in 10 innings, including two ducks.
Since India have decided to move on from Cheteshwar Pujara at the No.3 position in the longest format, Gill himself reportedly had a chat with head coach Rahul Dravid and skipper Rohit Sharma as he wanted to bat at that position. Initially, he began his career as a Test opener but then moved to No. 3.
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In that position, he has played 10 innings so far and scored 189 runs, at an average of 21 without a single fifty or a century. But the main concern is that the dip in form is not only in his red-ball game, it has been affecting his white-ball game also. Gill had a fantastic 2023 going into the ODI World Cup in India. He scored four centuries, including a double century in ODIs. In T20Is also, he smashed a hundred. So, fans were excited to see him, pairing up with skipper Rohit Sharma at the top of the order in the mega event.
Then, suddenly, Gill got infected with dengue and he missed the first two matches of the World Cup. It was shocking news for every Indian fan and normally, it takes a significant amount of time to get back to normal strength after recovering from that virus. But, in the game against Pakistan, Gill made a comeback and had a decent World Cup with four 50-plus scores in nine innings.
However, statistically, it has been found that the dip in form across all formats has come for the wonder kid after the infection. Before that, he was scoring runs. In fact, he won the Orange Cap in the 2023 Indian Premier League (IPL). So, does a quick recovery from dengue have a connection with his form as he might have needed more rest to be as good as earlier mentally and physically? Let’s see what the stats say:
According to these stats, Gill has failed to score a century across all three formats after coming back from the dengue infection. He has only four fifties in ODIs. Before that, he scored nine centuries and 14 fifties in 79 international innings. In T20Is, his ratio of hitting sixes has gone down also. Before dengue, he hit 16 sixes in 11 innings. But, after the disease, in three innings, he failed to hit a single one.
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