The five-match T20I trip to Zimbabwe, led by India’s captain Shubman Gill, has revealed that he and his Punjab teammate Abhishek Sharma will begin the batting.
Ruturaj Gaikwad will bat at number three in the series opener at the Harare Sports Club on Saturday. Shubman Gill, India’s skipper for the five-match T20I trip of Zimbabwe, has stated that he will begin the batting with his Punjab state-mate Abhishek Sharma. The shortest format world champions, India and Sri Lanka, will host the next T20 World Cup in 2026. The T20Is versus Zimbabwe will kick off a new two-year adventure for them. “Ruturaj will play at number three, and Abhishek and I will open.”In the T20s, I also open (the innings), following in the footsteps of Rohit and Virat bhai, who opened in the World Cup. Thus, I believe I would like to start in the Twenty20s,” Gill stated at the press conference held prior to the game.
Gill and Abhishek, who made his debut for India last month, will be making an early push to replace the void left by Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma’s T20I retirements following their team’s victory in the T20 World Cup in Barbados.
Expectations and pressure are constants, in my opinion. However, I believe that what Virat and Rohit have accomplished is something that will be extremely challenging for me to attain. Each player has certain objectives, such as places they hope to go.
Thus, a great deal of pressure exists. There is more pressure on you if you wish to go where others have gone. However, since they are both icons and heroes in Indian cricket, there is no pressure on them for what they have accomplished or done for the country, Gill continued.
The right-handed hitter added that the pressure to perform well in Zimbabwe is all that his new squad is under. There is pressure to accomplish our goals as a team, no doubt about it. No matter what kind of match you play, I believe there is pressure involved because, in my opinion, there would be no purpose in playing that particular match if there were no pressure.
“You always feel pressure to do well in every game or competition you participate in. This is true regardless of when you play. Therefore, in my opinion, there is no urgency for this to be the start of a new cycle. On the other hand, there is pressure on us to perform well as a team.
Head coach of the National Cricket Academy (NCA), VVS Laxman, will be coaching India’s T20I team. The other new players are Abhishek, Riyan Parag, Dhruv Jurel, Tushar Deshpande, B. Sai Sudarshan, and Harshit Rana (for the first two matches only).
Since many of the young players will be participating for the first time, there is undoubtedly a lot of excitement. Whenever new players enter the game, make their debut, and perform well, it is always interesting to see. In light of it, Gill acknowledged that the team is very excited to be able to come here and perform well.
“The team now looks very different from the one that participated in the World Cup. Like myself, there are a lot of young guys on the squad. In light of that, our goal is to simply impart experience and a taste of what it’s like to compete internationally to the players.
Since many of the players haven’t even made their debuts, and some haven’t even participated in many games. Thus, our goal for the series is to provide them with further exposure and experience abroad,” Gill continued when discussing India’s hopes for the Zimbabwe series.
He stated that they aren’t treating the Sikandar Raza-led Zimbabwe lightly and that the Indian team will face difficult conditions in Harare.
Due to everyone’s varied time zone arrival, the situation will be extremely difficult. Still, I believe the challenge is the same. It’s been two or three days since we started training here. We have played here before two years ago when we visited for a single day, so we are accustomed to the conditions. Therefore, I believe this will be a good series,” he stated.
“I believe Zimbabwe’s Twenty20 team is competitive. We know that this time will not be any different from the last time we participated in the ODIs (2022), when we had a very close final day of play. The difficulty for us is that the Zimbabwean people would approach us in the same manner as any other country, he continued.
This will be Gill’s first time leading India at the international level, and he believes the lessons he learned from leading the Gujarat Titans in the 2024 Indian Premier League will help him meet the challenges of leading an international series in Harare, where he first made a name for himself in the India ODI setup nearly two years ago.
“My first IPL team captaincy experience taught me a lot of lessons. Both the leadership perspective and a great deal more about myself were revealed to me. The majority of the difficulties a captain has, in my opinion, are psychological in nature. For example, how can you prepare the guys when everyone has the same skill set?
He said, “It’s about how you can instill in them the confidence to use that skill set on the field.
