Shubman Gill breaks silence on getting omitted from T20 World Cup squad: ‘I am where I have to be’

Gill revealed that he had suggested more practice in red-ball cricket, especially when the team was shifting from white-ball cricket. (AP Photo)

India’s Test and ODI captain Shubman Gill has said that he respected the selectors’ decision to omit him from the T20 World Cup squad last month. The 26-year-old, who was made the T20I vice-captain last August, was omitted from the 15-member squad with Axar Patel reinstated as the deputy to Suryakumar Yadav.

“I respect the selectors’ decision. All the best to the team for the T20 World Cup. I am where I have to be, and whatever is written in my destiny, no one can take that from me. A player always believes he will try his best for the country, and the selectors have taken their decision,”Gill told reporters before the first ODI against New Zealand.

Gill took over India’s ODI captain in October, but has been out of action since mid-November after suffering a neck injury in the Test series against South Africa. The 26-year-old said that it was frustrating to be on the sidelines and watch the team play while being out injured.

“Never easy, especially whenever you get injured, watching your team play, and you feel like you are missing out on all those games, especially when you have just been named the captain.”

“There are so many things that you want to do, and when you set out, it is definitely very frustrating, but at the same time, you just have to focus on what are the things that you need to do in that moment and kind of build on that,” Gill said.

The right-hander revealed that he had suggested more practice in red-ball cricket, especially when the team was shifting from white-ball cricket.

“One of the suggestions that I was very keen on is that, if you would see in the last two test series that we played, we didn’t have that much time to prepare. It’s not easy playing in India and playing another match in a different country on the fourth day. Especially when you are travelling on long tours.”

“And yes, I feel even if we would have won the series against South Africa, it still wouldn’t have made that much of a difference because we know we need to prepare well to be able to win test matches all over the world. And preparation for me is really big and I didn’t think that we had that much time to prepare when we came back from Australia, or even after the Asia Cup, when we played the West Indies series. I think it’s important to at least have some bit of preparation, some time.”

“Especially changing from the white ball format to red ball. So this was one of the things that I was very keen on, and I think we’ll take some action and we’ll keep it in mind to be able to prepare well before the start of any red ball series,” Gill said.