After piling on runs, talentd Gill to be tested in Tests (Profile)

Melbourne, Dec 25 : After making 2,270 runs at an average of 68.78 with seven hundreds in first class cricket, talented Indian batsman Shubman Gill will finally make his Test debut and there are few bigger stages in international cricket than the Boxing Day Test against Australia in Melbourne on Saturday.
Gill, 21, has been making all the right noises in the past three years, especially since the 2018 under-19 World Cup, where he was adjudged the Man of the Tournament for scoring 372 runs in six matches. He was vice-captain to Prithvi Shaw and was, importantly, one of the main architects of India’s triumph in New Zealand.
After the World Cup, he scored a whopping 728 runs in just nine matches at an average 104 in the 2018/19 Ranji Trophy season. His performances in domestic cricket and in India under-19 and India A tours have helped him garner praise from some of the biggest names in cricket.
“Gee, I was impressed with Gill. I really think he’s got something about him, his technique,” said former Australia captain Allan Border, whose surname makes up one half of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy, after seeing Gill’s performances in the two practice matches that the visiting Indians played against Australia A ahead of the first Test last week.
Born in the Fazilka district of Punjab, along the India-Pakistan border on September 8, 1999, Gill scored a half century on Ranji Trophy debut in the 2017/18 season and followed that up with an attacking 129 in his next match. His performances led to batting great Rahul Dravid, then coach of the India A and u-19 sides, slotting him into the under-19 programme.
Gill’s international debut came in January 2019, much before his Punjab teammate Yuvraj Singh had predicted. Yuvraj had said that Gill would be drafted into the senior squad after the 2019 World Cup but suspensions to Hardik Pandya and KL Rahul led to Gill being called as one of the two emergency replacements for the Indian team during their ODI series in New Zealand. However, he failed to cross single digits in the two matches he played.