Gujarat Titans’ skipper Shubman Gill is on the recovery path from a back spasm but his fitness will be assessed carefully at nets ahead of their IPL game against Sunrisers Hyderabad, said Director of Cricket Vikram Solanki on Thursday. Gill did not come to field during the Rajasthan Royals innings at Jaipur on April 28 and was subbed with pacer Ishant Sharma. Rashid Khan stood in as captain in that match in which the young Vaibhav Suryavanshi made a sparkling hundred to lead RR to an eight-wicket win.
“His fitness, there was a bit of a back spasm. We’re just trying to be careful with it. He’ll be at training today. We’ll just see where he’s at. We’re reasonably confident that he’s going to be OK,” said Solanki on the eve of GT’s game against SRH here.
Solanki insisted that Suryavanshi’s bruising 35-ball 100 has not heaped any extra pressure on his side.
“Firstly, I don’t think the team has been decimated or anything of the sort. We mustn’t take any credit away from that young man. He played quite brilliantly,” he said.
The former England batter said they could have planned better against the 14-year-old RR batter when he was on a rampage.
“Of course, we could have done things differently. We could have bowled in a slightly more controlling manner, we could have sort of shut him down perhaps,” he added.
Suryavanshi’s effort, Solanki said, was a confirmation of the fact that age is no bar to make an impression at top-flight sport if one has desired levels of talent and commitment.
“He was quite phenomenal against us. But I don’t think you can decide an appropriate age, there’s no perfect age. If somebody is ready to play at a certain level, I think they should be allowed the opportunity and exposure to be able to do so.
“Credit to Rajasthan Royals for spotting that talent and then giving that talent the opportunity.” The GT will come across another heavy artillery batting line-up against SRH, though batters such as Travis Head, Abhishek Sharma, Ishan Kishan and Heinrich Klaasen have been quite underwhelming this season.
“We must pay the due respect that SRH deserves. They are a very strong team. We will be conscious of the threat that they have. They’ve got match winners across their team,” he said.
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