Karsan Ghavri, the former India seamer, unearthed a gem, answering to the name of Shubman Gill. That was about a decade-and-a-half ago. A lot of water has flown down the Beas since. Gill is now India’s Test captain, but the teacher-pupil relationship has remained strong. On Teacher’s Day, Ghavri takes a trip down the memory lane, the discovery of a champion batsman, as he speaks to RevSportz’s Editor-in-Chief Boria Majumdar.
Boria: Tell us a bit about your visit to the Punjab Cricket Association camp and the discovery of Shubman Gill.
Karsan Ghavri: In 2011 or 2012, the BCCI, NCA (National Cricket Academy) had arranged for a fast bowlers’ camp and there were categories like U-16 for one month, U-19 the next month and U-23 the third month. So, they used to have these three camps every year and I was the head coach of the first-bowling camp at the time. It was 2011 or 2012, and one day at the camp, we had our 16-year-old fast bowlers practising at the nets, when unfortunately, it started drizzling. We stopped our practice thinking that our bowlers should not get injured and there was some indoor work going on in Mohali so it was not available, hence the entire practice had to be put off and I told the boys to go back to the room and rest.
In the meantime, me, and my assistant coach Yoginder Puri went across the Mohali stadium where there is one more small ground. A lot of boys were playing there and there I saw this young boy who was batting beautifully. He didn’t look like a U-14 player because he was so technically correct with good driving, good defence and everything. He just stayed on my mind so I asked my assistant coach if he knew who that boy was to which he replied he did not. Then we just saw him (the boy) walking back and on the boundary line there was one gentleman standing who was looking at the practice and I asked that gentleman about the boy and he said ‘he is my son, Shubman Gill’. So I told him that tomorrow onwards please bring him to our nets and let him face our U-16 boys and he happily agreed.
The next day onwards, he (Shubman) came religiously for all three camps U-16, U-19 and U-23, and he was 12 years old at the time. The way he was facing all the bowlers of ours, it was just amazing. Seeing all these things I requested Mr Pandove (MP Pandove) and Mr Sushil Kapoor to include that boy in the U-14 team because he was very good, with the potential of turning out to be great. Luckily, or you can say coincidentally, they listened to my suggestion and Shubman was put into the U-14 team as a 12-year-old under-age kid. Once he started playing with the U-14 team, he scored a lot of runs in the tournament and then, you know he went on to play U-16, U-19 and then of course played U-19 World Cup for India. Since then, he has never looked back.
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