Jennifer
The much-waited Border-Gavaskar Trophy finally began on 9 February 2023 in Nagpur. All eyes were set to see an enthralling battle between India and Australia. But, on the eve of the series opener, Rohit Sharma said that he was still unsure about the decision of playing either Shubman Gill or Suryakumar Yadav.
The Indian skipper said: “Both have been terrific and both bring a different thing. Gill obviously has been in great form and scoring heavily in all formats. Surya has been in terrific form in the T20 and hopefully, he can bring that game into this format as well.” However, there were reports that Suryakumar Yadav might get the Test debut cap in Nagpur.
Shubman Gill scored his maiden Test ton in the last Test series in Bangladesh
Even, some fans also suggested including Shubman Gill as an opener while playing KL Rahul or Suryakumar Yadav in the middle order. Shubman Gill has been enjoying a great run with the bat for India in recent months. In the white-ball formats, he scored ODI centuries while managing his maiden T20I century. So, fans were hoping to see him in action in the longest format of the game in this series. On the other hand, KL Rahul has failed to score big runs in this format since the start of 2022. In the last series in Bangladesh, he scored only 57 runs in four innings.
But, fans also claimed that it will be tough to drop Rahul as he is the vice-captain of the team. But, former cricketers like Kapil Dev and Harbhajan Singh raised their voices to drop KL Rahul. They both showed faith in Shubman Gill as the opener ahead of the first Test. But, after losing the toss, Rohit Sharma confirmed that Suryakumar Yadav and Srikar Bharat have been given debut caps. Hence, Shubman Gill failed to get a place in the final playing XI. After such a decision, fans came up and slammed the team management on social media platforms.
Here is how fans have shown support for Shubman Gill by slamming team India management:
@BCCI why this blady @klrahul is in playing 11??? Why not @ShubmanGill ??? Did he give any special service to Management.
— Soumik Dutta🇮🇳🇮🇳🇮🇳 (@IMSmik_dutta) February 9, 2023
@DebShaunak sir will the exclusion of shubman gill be a problem for India in this match? #Askstar @jatinsapru
— SHAUNAK ♦️(UNITED SZN) (@DebShaunak) February 9, 2023
Centurion Boy @ShubmanGill is sitting in pavillion and duck boy @klrahul is opening….
— Amit Gupta (@amitgupta1900) February 9, 2023
K L Rahul instead of Shubman Gill in playing eleven seems to be BCCI'S Wedding Gift to Rahul !#INDvsAUS #BCCI #1stTest
— Amlan Sarma (@amlansarma) February 9, 2023
@IrfanPathan @jatinsapru what made the management choose Kl Rahul over Shubman Gill considering both of their forms? #AskStar
— isha🥶💛 (@shaw11_ishita) February 9, 2023
You people n your lazy bum captain doing injustice with talents of nation…
I feel sorry for @ShubmanGill & @imkuldeep18 …#klrahul 🤔
— Cartoonist PM (@Prakashh031) February 9, 2023
GILL 😌😌😌 pic.twitter.com/d55FnulZes
— GAURAV (@ngaurav21) February 9, 2023
Shubhman Gill right now pic.twitter.com/2XRnNeMiOE
— Shardul Thakur 🗨️ (@asliwiseman) February 9, 2023
