Gill and Abhishek: Old Friends, New Chapters as they’re set to rejoin forces at the top of the order in T20Is.
Gill and Abhishek begin new chapter in old bromance.
Amid intervals, Gill and Abhishek alternately admired each other’s strokes while batting in neighbouring nets on the centre pitches of the ICC Academy in Dubai on Saturday. Abhishek wasn’t always thrilled with the sound of bat striking ball. Taking up one of Gill’s bats, he started to ease himself back into his shots.
Until the coaches announced the last set, Abhishek was all connection, power, and Gill’s beautiful timing for the remainder of the practice. Gill then started using creative strokes like scoop, ramp, and reverse sweep. Abhishek, who had completed his net at that point, waited for Gill, and the two of them left with smiles on their faces.
The two fulfilled their ambition of opening together for India last year in Zimbabwe, when Gill was the T20I captain and Abhishek had received his first India call-up following a brilliant IPL season. However, that was a secondary aspect. Since Gill and Abhishek will be opening for a full-strength India team that is getting ready for a T20 World Cup defence early next year, the Asia Cup in the United Arab Emirates may be even more memorable for them.
The Gill and Abhishek bonhomie
The narrative of the two dates back more than ten years, to their first encounter at the Punjab Under-14s camp. Their paths have been entwined from there through state-level cricket, the India age-group teams, and the Under-16s and Under-19s.
The custom of Gill and Abhishek sharing a room during tours persisted for the majority of their age-group days. Only because the coaches wanted them to interact with the other players in the group did they eventually have to be separated.
As a member of India’s 2018 Under-19 World Cup winning squad, Shivam Mavi remembers, “Gill and Abhishek were always there. The two were usually together, whether it was for lunches and dinners, team activities, or team outings.
During that campaign, Gill and Abhishek, and Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Mavi’s new ball partner, once organised a surprise birthday party for coach Rahul Dravid. “They suggested smashing Rahul Sir’s face with a cake. And they succeeded,” Mavi chuckles.
The two reunited during the Covid-19 epidemic. Yuvraj Singh was the man who, in a sense, brought them all together with several other Punjabi players. There was no room for banter or jokes this time. Yuvraj was in charge, and Gill and Abhishek had to pay attention to whatever he said. Among his directives were strict sleep-and-wake-up regimens, no parties, and no phones at night.
Yuvraj boarded the players at his house for a month to make sure they followed their routines, and he requested special licenses to practice during a period when lockdown regulations were stringent. Gill and Abhishek both have positive memories of this period and attribute their toughening to it.
Different stages in their careers
Gill is currently the all-format poster boy for Indian cricket and the brand’s favourite. He is already in the running for ODI captaincy whenever the selectors look to the future after a successful first Test tour as captain in England, where he scored runs with the same regularity of his teenage years. He is currently the vice-captain of the T20I team.
Gill offers a body of work and a changed style of play that emerged during the Gujarat Titans match in 2023, when he dominated the IPL with a record-breaking 890 runs at a strike rate of 157.80, including three hundreds. Gill’s ability to hit sixes was his most improved skill; he hit 33 of them that season, third-most of any batter.
Abhishek has had a more complicated road. He wasn’t an immediate IPL star and alternated between middle-order hitter, occasional finisher, and part-time spinner for a while. It dawned on him then that his game was designed to take bowlers on from the first ball.
His approach was altered by the days he spent practicing under Yuvraj during Chandigarh lockdowns. In order to force Abhishek to improve his bat speed and footwork, Yuvraj had him train on marble slabs to make the ball skid and ordered the curator in Mullanpur to set up roaring turners. The exercise, which was akin to boot camp, opened something within of him.
A New Chapter awaits
The switch to T20Is has also gone well; since his debut, Abhishek has amassed the highest strike rate of any batsman with at least 500 runs (193.84). He began playing for India while the senior players were being rested, and now that the World Cup is quickly approaching and India is focussing entirely on Twenty20 Internationals, he is still there, keeping a batsman of his calibre like Yashasvi Jaiswal out of the team.
It was a moving moment when Abhishek switched to Gill’s bat during practice because it was in Harare that he had scored his first T20I century in just his second game using one of Gill’s bats.
Between now until the T20 World Cup next year, Gill and Abhishek’s paths are running together once more after diverging and reuniting numerous times over the years. It’s impossible to predict how risky this collaboration could be if they click as they did at the nets or when they were teenagers.