India captain Shikhar Dhawan reserved special praise for the 22-year-old Shubman Gill and compared the young opener’s batting prowess with Rohit Sharma. Gill was unlucky to miss out on a maiden century, but India rode on his sublime 98 to outclass West Indies by 119 runs and complete a 3-0 rout in the ODI series.
Gill scored 205 runs in three games against West Indies with scores of 64, 43, and 98 not out.
”He (Gill) has got a very good technique and he is a very classy player. I think he has got a bit of a Rohit touch in him. He seems to have a lot of time the way he bats. Good to see that he scored 98 today. He knew how to convert those fifties into 90s,” he said. The skipper also heaped praise on Siraj and all-rounder Deepak Hooda for their bowling exploits. ”Siraj is a quality bowler. His self-belief has increased a lot. He knows what he has to do. He backs himself. So as a captain it becomes easy for me. It feels good to see as a skipper that the boys know what to do, they know their responsibilities.
”I knew before the series that Deepak can perform the role of an all-rounder and the way he responded in the first match, his confidence started to grow as a bowler. Not just left-hander, he bowled well to right-handers as well,” Dhawan said. ”After the first match, we saw their left-handers are facing some problems against Deepak, so we decided to bowl him from the start as fast bowlers weren’t able to extract many swings.” Dhawan went on to credit India’s existing domestic structure, especially the IPL for the growth of young players. ”The ways the boys are responding, they are young but are quite mature and sensible. They can handle the pressure quite nicely. Thanks to our domestic cricket and IPL because of that exposure, the transition to international cricket becomes quite easy. ”Hats off to all the boys. They have been very disciplined and quite practical,” he signed off.
