Former India cricketer turned veteran commentator Aakash Chopra recently opined on the chatter around Shubman Gill’s place in India’s T20I team. He added that Gill’s flop show in the 2025 Asia Cup final against Pakistan should concern the team. He also stated that Gill’s role in India’s T20I team is to play steadily, especially while chasing 150-odd totals. He also shared that Gill’s job becomes crucial in such games, as most batters around him are hitters as well.
Chopra said on journalist Shubhankar Mishra’s YouTube channel: “Shubman Gill was being prepared for a 150-run match, like the 2025 Asia Cup final. Shubman not scoring runs in that match is a problem. I am not that bothered by what happens around it because he has been hired for that one job. All the others are strokemakers; they don’t have another gear, but you have.”
He also pointed out that Gill has proved his mettle in T20 cricket over the last few years.
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Sharing the batter’s stunning performances in the Indian Premier League (IPL), he added: “If you look at multi-nation tournaments, the 2022 T20 World Cup, the 2024 T20 World Cup, and the 2025 Asia Cup, you won’t find 200-plus scores. You talk about 250-300 in bilaterals, but a team rarely does that in an ICC event because everyone plays with fear. The approach of playing differently and hitting sixes is there. But when an ICC event comes, everyone wants a safety-first approach. India have assembled so many strikers that either they will score 225 or 125. You are no longer playing in the middle; it’s either this end or that end. So, the investment in Gill is to cover that middle part.”
“He has scored runs in the IPL; it’s not like he is not a T20 player. If you look at his last three IPL seasons, one was a Virat Kohli-esque season, where he made his team win by hitting hundreds. 2024 was not that good, but 2023 was outstanding; it seemed like he would break Virat Kohli’s record. Sai Sudharsan was the leading run-scorer in 2025, but he too scored a lot of runs. So, it’s not like he doesn’t have T20 credentials. He has already scored hundreds for India in all three formats,” he added.
However, Aakash Chopra also predicted about Shubman Gill’s ODI career. He said that if he played the same number of ODIs as former captain Virat Kohli, he could overtake his total runs in the format.
He said: “Let’s wait and watch. I feel that if he plays the same number of ODIs that Virat Kohli has, he will go ahead of Kohli in the total number of runs.”
