The head of selection committee MSK Prasad is excited about young Shubman Gill as he feels that the enormously talented Punjab batsman is now ready for international cricket.
“Shubman is comfortable both opening the innings as well as playing in the middle-order. For New Zealand series, we are looking at him as the reserve opener behind Shikhar (Dhawan) and Rohit (Sharma). I won’t comment if he will make it to World Cup but he was phenomenal as an opener for India A in New Zealand.
“We have discussed with Rahul (Dravid), that Shubman is ready for international cricket. The best part is the clutch of A tours which has made all these players battle ready for the biggest challenge,” the eloquent Prasad said.
The likes of Hanuma Vihari, Mayank Agarwal, Prithvi Shaw, Khaleel Ahmed have all been impressive in international cricket and that makes Prasad very happy.
“I regularly discuss the progress of the players with Ravi and Rahul. Have a look at how we have planned a player’s progression from Ranji Trophy, A team to senior team. Look at Hanuma Vihari and Mayank Agarwal. They don’t look intimidated when thrown into the deep end of the pool,” said Prasad.
For him and his colleagues, one of the biggest plus points has been taking the risk of unleashing two wrist spinners in Kuldeep Yadav and Yuzvendra Chahal in the ODI set-up, replacing Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja.
“We received flak when we had replaced world’s No 1 and 2 spinner (as per ICC Rankings) with two young wrist spinners. One and half years down the line, they (Kuldeep and Chahal) have had contribution in at least 70 percent of India’s limited overs wins,” the satisfaction was evident in his voice.
