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Shubman Gill Exclusive: On Cricket, IPL And The 2025 Champions Trophy Win for India
India’s biggest entertainment carnival, the Indian Premier League, is the ultimate arena for cricket stardom. One top-drawer talent who showcases the fact elegantly is Gujarat Titans captain, Shubman Gill. “Preparation gives me the most amount of courage and confidence,” says the man, widely touted to one day lead Team India.
Six years after he started playing for the Indian cricket team, and at age 25, Shubman Gill finds himself on the cusp of a transition.
While he is still spoken of as a young, upcoming cricketer, a bona fide future star, he is already the vice-captain of the Indian team that won the Champions Trophy in March in Dubai.
He likes hanging out with his “entourage”, a word he uses as a substitute for childhood friends, a word derived from the American television show he has recently seen. Gill is not unlike Vince Chase, the upcoming movie star of the series, who alternates between the trappings of a celebrity and the kid next door.
But Gill is also the captain of the Gujarat Titans (GT) in the T20 Indian Premier League (IPL), which started last month, having risen to that role in the team last season. His responsibilities include not just watching his own performance, as the team’s opener and often its top scorer, but also in leading others.
He is at an age in which he feels a constant need to be with friends, to spend lazy afternoons on his PlayStation, to have broad ambitions such as scoring the most runs for India. But he is parallelly also figuring out his leadership style, how to battle loneliness on long overseas tours when things may not be going his way, to appreciate Renaissance art and to experiment with gluten-free parathas.
He is young enough to go through a hat phase, a cowboy hat no less, and conscious enough to check in advance if the mention of a particular food choice would pass muster from social-media policing. He likes Punjabi rap; he also likes the Renaissance artist Raphael.
If Gill manages to win the IPL for GT in 2025, that transition, that merger between present and future, young and mature, may well be completed.
Successes and failures are difficult to quantify in the fickle world of the IPL, much like in the movies, with which it is often compared. The league’s magnitude can be understood by the fact that fewer films release in the two-month period, for the concern that audiences may favour cricket over movies. Individual performances may not guarantee team success, evident from the example of the Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB), which has had players like Virat Kohli, A.B. de Villiers and Chris Gayle, but no title in 17 seasons of the IPL. But the league can create overnight stardom, like the movies, and give someone like Gill, already on the fringes of it, just that nudge needed to remove any elements of doubt.
“There is this quote that I love, which says, ‘Everything you hear is an opinion not a fact and everything you see is perspective not the truth’,” says Gill, explaining his interest in art and architecture. “Museums wind me down; give me a new perspective in life. I am a bit of an overthinker, and it puts me in the present.”
The present, when Gill chooses to inhabit it, is fairly rosy for the cricketer who came into the national team through the ranks of under-19 cricket. His current test match numbers show less than 2,000 runs from 32 matches at an average of about 35. But his stats in white-ball cricket, especially the 50-over format, defy belief. An average touching 60, a strike rate (number of balls faced for 100 runs) of nearly 100, with 23 scores of above 50 (including centuries) in 55 matches, Gill’s figures surpass that of most of his teammates.
International cricketers tend to believe that test matches are the true measure of cricketing credentials, and Gill is no different, pointing to the 91 he made against Australia in the fourth test at Brisbane in 2021 as his best knock so far. Rishabh Pant took the accolades in that match, which dramatically gave India the series 2-1. But Gill’s inning in that test at the top of the order set up the win, besides his two solid knocks in his debut match at Melbourne, the second test of the series, which highlighted the potential he held.
That potential has only strengthened in the subsequent five years. His classical batting style, elegant and effortless, accompanied by movie-star looks, make him not just a cricketer to reckon with, but a person of interest beyond the sport.
If his batting is analysed threadbare in a country brimming with cricket experts, his social life is fodder for tabloids, with trigger-happy portals gasping for a hint of who his next dalliance might be with. The internet is brimming with names of women he might be associated with, but he dismisses the notion, claiming to have been single for the last three years because cricket, career and ambition allow for little wriggle room.
Whose advice do you find yourself leaning on, and what is the kind of help that you find yourself seeking?
Fortunately, I have access to a lot of people in my life that I can lean on in our team. If you have someone like Rohit [Sharma] bhai, Virat [Kohli] bhai, or even Gauti bhai (Gautam Gambhir), these are some of the best people that you can lean on. And in the IPL, we have Ashu pa [Ashish Nehra], Vikram [Solanki] paaji, then Gary [Kirsten] was also there. So these are the people that I lean on when we are playing the IPL.
Yuvi paaji (Yuvraj Singh) is someone whom I’ve been in constant touch with for the past five years, and he never shies away from giving his input or his opinion — if there’s something that I’m lacking, if there’s something that I can do more, or if there’s something that he wants me to avoid. So, I think these are the people that I always lean on.
Making the Right Moves
At a studio in Bandra, Mumbai, Gill has to get in and out of costumes, stand patiently in front of a camera, and appear nonchalant in a trench coat when the outside temperature hovers around the high 30s. It’s obvious that India’s next (or is it current?) big cricket star is comfortable in a room filled with a constant hum of the kind of activity that accompanies a photo shoot. He does not yet own a room as soon as he walks into it, but at over six feet tall, with an easy smile and quiet confidence, he can make his presence felt quickly.
As Gill poses in an all-black ensemble, including gloves and, of course, a hat, a Spotify account plays out a Punjabi number by Sammohit & Mahlan Wala 59. By the time Gill goes through his second, third and fourth looks, the songs have included “The Last Ride” by Sidhu Moose Wala and Wazir Patar and “Naam Tera” by Ndee Kundu, though the cricketer does not seem to notice except for an occasional sway on stage in between clicks.
Someone calls him a cricketer and creative director rolled in one, as Gill suggests a change in position and climbs onto a sofa backrest for a pose. He feels fashion is a part of a person’s personality and “how you dress or behave is something that exceeds beyond what you do. It’s like you’re getting to know something about yourself, which is quite cool.”
The cowboy hat comes off at some point, which is an improvement because, as a friend says later, Gill does not have the kind of face that needs to be under a shadow. He has seen enough videos of how “people pose”, checking online to see “who’s shooting what”, to know exactly what he needs to do in a studio, which makes a photographer’s job simpler.
“How much effort you put in something gives you confidence,” he says, in a soft-spoken, measured way that seems to suggest that he is weighing every word. “Especially for me, if I know that I’ve done this thing millions of times over and I just have to do it one more time…
“Like if I’m playing a match,” he says, adding the context of his day job, “and I’m playing against a certain type of bowler. I know I’ve played against this type of bowler so many times. I have done well [against him] and I’ve prepared for it.
“Preparation gives me the most amount of courage and confidence,” he says, less than a week after the Champions Trophy win and 10 days before GT’s first match of IPL 2025.
He equates the IPL to a festival, for fans to be a part of and for players to be fortunate enough to play in. The very nature of the league separates it from tests and ODIs (one day international matches), with a riot of colours, the vuvuzela blaring in the stands, daily drama, players from different nationalities in one team, the heat and the chaos. As much as cricket is a neat sport, the IPL is not. Unsurprisingly, the IPL calls for a change of mindset from international cricket, which, according to Gill, is 80 per cent mental and 20 per cent technical.
“How mentally tough I am to be able to make that switch as soon as possible is the key for me,” says the Gujarat Titans captain. “It is a completely different thing from being just a player, so there’s a whole lot more responsibility. It’s just that manoeuvring between your own performance and getting the best from everyone [else] is challenging — and exciting at the same time.”
He explains the technical shift by way of playing some shots in T20 that he would not otherwise in tests (or ODIs). Test match batting calls for more prudence; T20s require bravado because the format has greater tolerance for wild swings and misses. “In T20, you have to hit certain balls that you sometimes might not hit in a one-day match. It’s more mental than technical. The technical part comes into play because when we are playing one-dayers and Tests, we don’t try to hit a six off every ball.
“Controlling yourself,” he elaborates, “is more mental.”
After a few seasons with the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) team, which got him into the IPL in 2018, the then newly formed GT acquired Gill in 2022 and elevated him to captaincy last season after Hardik Pandya left for the Mumbai Indians. Gill has over 3,000 runs in the league, at a healthy average of nearly 38 runs and a strike rate of 135. In 2023, he won the Orange Cap, for most runs in a season, with his 890 runs coming at an average of nearly 60 which took the team to its second consecutive final. His first season as captain in 2024 did not go as aspired, with GT finishing eighth in the league and failing to qualify for the play-offs.
But the IPL title he won in 2022 with GT and the Champions Trophy now, have added an adequate lustre to Gill’s resume. He missed out on the big one when, in 2023, India entered the World Cup (50 overs) final in Ahmedabad unbeaten, only to lose to Australia. This year, they made the Champions Trophy final also unbeaten, but were able do one better by winning the final against New Zealand.
“Sometimes, the reality of any sport is that one match (the final) cannot decide if you are the best team or not. We still believe that we played the best cricket in that (2023) tournament and we were the best team. We didn’t have to prove anything to anyone,” says Gill, who made 31 runs (off 50 balls) in the Dubai final last month and just 4 runs in the World Cup final in November 2023.
“We knew that we were the best team in that World Cup. So going into the Champions Trophy, firstly, we did not even talk about that final. Game after game, we were just talking about how we can do the same thing that we’ve been doing. We didn’t have to change anything, even if we lost that final.”
That match, played in front of over 1,00,000 people crammed into a stadium in Ahmedabad that had absurdly skyrocketing ticket prices, in front of heads of governments, business leaders and movie stars, was expected to go India’s way. But Australia’s Travis Head calmly headed Australia to an improbable win, which was a topic of conversation for months because it was assumed that India had the title in its pocket.
“Obviously, those memories haunt you when you’re on the field,” Gill acknowledges. “We can all talk about, ‘Oh let’s take the occasion away from the game and play as freely as possible.’ But it (Ahmedabad) does come to your mind for sure.”
He pauses for a moment before adding, “We honestly didn’t think about that [in Dubai]. We were only thinking about having played New Zealand in the group, what we did well in that match (India won by 44 runs), what we needed to repeat to be able to have the same result.” India won the final a week later by four wickets.
“That feeling of lifting the trophy, it’s hard to explain. Especially with the players we have in our team, like Rohit (Sharma) bhai, Virat bhai, some of the other senior players that I have grown up watching, idolising... . It’s hard to put that into words.”
Calling the Shots
Gill was about seven years old when his family shifted from his grandparents’ home to Chandigarh. He remembers always having friends who were older than him and that extended to cricket too, as his father, Lakhwinder, ensured that he played in an age group that was older. Gill believes it may have contributed to how he turned out as a cricketer, because he was competing against stronger, more experienced children.
Lakhwinder had another gift for his son, in that he didn’t really have to go to school much. Gill says his attendance was a precise 12 per cent from standards 8 to 10. “I am telling you, I literally used to go to school when I used to feel tired from [cricket] practice and playing matches,” he says, grinning. “I used to be like, dad, I want to have some fun, can I go to school please? He would allow me to go to school, but he would come in during recess and take me back.”
Going to school allowed Gill those few opportunities to mingle with children his own age. “When people tell me that I’m a bit more mature for my age, I think it’s because I always played in an [older] age group.”
Before long, just shortly after his first-class debut for Punjab, he was part of the squad playing the 2018 Under-19 World Cup, which India won. Vice-captain Gill was the player of the series for his 372 runs. Only two other players from that side, Arshdeep Singh and Prithvi Shaw, made some impact in international cricket with the men’s teams.
An impressive debut for the men’s team followed in Australia in 2020, which led to an — almost — permanent place in the Indian squad. For all his abilities, for all the stylish, effortless starts to his innings, Gill didn’t seem to make enough runs in tests to cement his place in the team. When he returned to play in Australia late last year, a series India lost 1-3, Gill could make only 93 runs in three tests.
“There are days when I question myself,” he says, “Am I thinking about the game? Am I putting in as much effort as I was before I got all this? About 99 per cent of the time, the answer is yes."
“But there was a period in my life when the answer was not yes. Maybe I could do a bit more. There are days when you don’t feel like doing anything but those are the days that are really important for you to get up. Days when I am feeling low, I make an effort to do more on that day.”
Tours like those seemed long, especially on the days off. When there is nothing going his way, Gill’s most content with a few hours of practice, which puts him at ease. “On an away tour, the other (host cricket) board gives you the days to practice. When there is nothing to do, you are in a small city, there are not too many places to eat, your friends are not with you… . Those are the days you feel low and lonely.”
On the morning of a match, he prefers listening to classical music, favouring composer Ludovico Einaudi. It helps him get in “that zone”, a phrase sportspeople use to illustrate focus and heightened performance. It’s a genre of music that he got into when he was about 13 years old and saw the movie Rush, Ron Howard’s interpretation of the famous rivalry between Formula One racers Niki Lauda and James Hunt. Its soundtrack, a typically rousing collection by composer Hans Zimmer, impressed young Gill who got intrigued by Western music.
This year has started well for him, with 447 runs in eight ODIs, including two centuries, a form he hopes to carry into the IPL. He measures success as being able to put in the same effort irrespective of the result, maintaining a consistent work ethic. “This defines success [for me] and if I can do this for the next 10 to 15 years, or however long I play for, I will be successful.”
It was end of December 2022 and the Indian team was returning from a 2-0 Test series win in Bangladesh. On the flight back home, Gill wrote his “manifestations” for the upcoming year on a piece of paper and posted the picture on his Instagram account. His wish list included “most hundreds for India, make my family happy, give my best effort and be less hard on myself, WC (World Cup), Org cap (Orange Cap for most runs in the IPL)”.
Except for the World Cup, all the other “tangible things came true. Be less hard on yourself…that doesn’t have a measure. I am an ambitious person. I sometimes can’t control...
“It’s easy to reflect upon,” Gill says, in that careful, measured way, “but when you are in that moment, it’s hard not to be hard on yourself.”
There’s so much scrutiny on your dating life, your personal life. Do you want to set the record straight?
I think I have been single for over three years, and there have been so many speculations and rumours linking me with different people. Sometimes, it’s so ridiculous — I have never even seen or met a person in my life, and I would be hearing rumours like, “Why am I with this person and
this person?”
Right now, I’m so focused on what I need to do in my professional career. There is no space in my life to be able to be with someone. Three hundred days in a year, we are on the road, travelling somewhere, so there is hardly any time to be able to be with someone or invest the time to be with someone in a relationship.
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