Shubman Gill sent captaincy warning to improve from IPL 2025

Former India head coach Anil Kumble believes that Gujarat Titans captain Shubman Gill will turn up to the Indian Premier League 2025 as a better captain of the team. 

Kumble's comments came after Shubman Gill's Gujarat got officially knocked out of the IPL 2024 play-offs race. It was confirmed last night after the match between GT and Sunrisers Hyderabad at the Narendra Modi stadium got washed out due to excessive rain. The same had happened during their previous home game against the Kolkata Knight Riders on May 13th. 

This is the first time since their inclusion in the league back in 2022 that Gujarat missed out on finishing in the top 4. During their debut season, they had won the title altogether while in IPL 2023, GT had finished as the runners-up to champions Chennai Super Kings. Shubman Gill and co. will be disappointed with how things went for them this season but there's still a lot to look forward to. 

What did Anil Kumble say about Shubman Gill's captaincy? 

While speaking to Jio Cinema recently, Anil Kumble was all praise for Shubman Gill. The former IPL runner-up in 2009 highlighted just how difficult it would have been for Gill to captain an IPL team for the first time in his short career. Kumble stated that Gill wasn't going to taste success on his debut season unlike Hardik Pandya, who won the Premiership in his first full season as captain. 

Regardless of Gujarat's failure to finish in the top 4, Anil Kumble was impressed with Shubman Gill's captaincy tactics and how the latter went about his things aggressively.  

"It's never easy coming into an IPL season for the first time leading a side. You are not going to have success the first time around. I know Hardik Pandya had success for GT when he became captain for GT in his first season. But what I like about Shubman Gill in the IPL has been his aggressive approach." - Kumble said via Jio Cinema. 

From 14 games this season, Gujarat had remained on the winning side just 5 times. They lost 7 matches and 2 games against KKR and SRH were washed out without a ball being bowled.

Individually, Shubman Gill didn't have the best of seasons either. From 12 games, Gill scored 426 runs at a 147.40 strike rate and even in his worst season since 2018, the 24-year-old managed to score a century and two fifties. His lack of form directly contributed to GT's shambolic outings in IPL 2024. 

Kumble explains Gill's smartness while setting the field

Anil Kumble then explained the specific thing he liked the most about Shubman Gill's captaincy. For Kumble, it was Gill's smartness and setting up the field wisely to continuously try and take wickets. The former leg-spinner stressed the fact that he had put the fielders in those catching positions himself even if he had serial wicket-takers like Rashid Khan and Noor Ahmed.

Lastly, the former Punjab Kings Director of Cricket claimed that Gill will learn a lot from the experiences he had this season and IPL 2024 was a learning curve for him.   

"When he was the captain, he set fields to take wickets. Yes, I know he has Rashid Khan and Noor Ahmed, but still, you need to keep those fielders in catching positions. It didn't work out for them this season. They didn't qualify. But I'm sure all those experiences would be a learning curve for him." - Anil Kumble concluded.