Former India legend Virender Sehwag criticized Shubman Gill even after he played a match-winning knock for Gujarat Titans against Punjab Kings on Thursday at the PCA IS Bindra International Stadium. But then, while chasing down the 154-run total against Punjab Kings, Gujarat batters batted slowly and took the match to the last ball.
The Punjab-based batter scored 67 runs in 49 balls and helped Gujarat win the game by six wickets. The opener smashed seven fours and a six to reach his half-century off 40 balls.
“He scored 67 off 49 balls but when did he reach his fifty? He reached his fifty off maybe 41-42 balls so in 7-8 balls he has scored 17 more runs. The acceleration came there, after he had reached his fifty. If even that had not happened then GT would have chased maybe 17 instead off 7 in the last over,” Sehwag said on Cricbuzz.
“You can’t think let me score a fifty and we will anyway win the match. This is cricket. The moment you think about your own performance (instead of the team), you will get a tight slap from cricket. You can’t think like that. If he had shown the same intent and played at close to a strike rate of 200 when he was nearing fifty then he could have reached his milestone a lot earlier and saved more deliveries for his team,” he added.
Eventually, Gill, too, accepted that he should have batted till the end finished the match.
“It got slower with the old ball. So we needed to get off to a good start in the powerplay. We lost a bit of momentum when Hardik bhai got out. It wasn’t a big score but it was important to rotate the strike and not have dot balls,” he said.