Punjab colts shine on England tour

Gaurav kanthwal

Tribune News Service

chandigarh, august 21

Punjab cricketers Shubman Gill and Abhishek Sharma have come out with flying colours in their first overseas test in the India Under-19 team’s tour of England. The team won its first four-day game against England U-19 by 334 runs and registered a 97-run win in the second game. In the 50-over series, the Indian colts whitewashed England 5-0. Gill emerged the Man of the Series with 278 runs in four matches and chipped in with three wickets with his off-spin.

Gill’s first overseas experience turned out to be fruitful as the right-hander scored one century in the four-day series, and followed it up with a century and another half-century in the limited-overs series. He was the highest run-scorer for the Indian team on the tour.

“It got more comfortable as the tour progressed. I got a century (102) in the second innings of the second ‘Test’. It boosted my confidence and I was able to score 147 and 66 in the last two 50-over matches,” Gill said.

The No. 3 batsman also took three wickets in the last two matches of the tour. He was also declared the Man of the Match in the third One-dayer. “I had been bowling in the nets for quite some time and I had a fair idea of what to do,” the 17-year-old added.

Even before his first tour — which the teenager had described as a “great learning opportunity” — had begun, Gill had been confident of doing well overseas. “The coaches in PCA had prepared me well for every difficulty that I would face in English conditions,” he said of his preparations before the tour.

The two-time winner of BCCI’s best U-16 cricketer of the year award (2014 and 2015) said that besides this being his first overseas tour, it was significant in the sense that it gave him first-time experience to play ‘Test’ cricket in different conditions. “It was a new experience to play in the longer format of the game abroad. The weather conditions changed suddenly and you had to adapt. As a batsman, I also got to know about the preparations to be made before a four-day game. Coaches WV Raman and Abhay Sharma guided us very well during the tour and discussed our strengths and weaknesses with us,” he said. Raman was impressed with Gill’s ability to pack a punch in his strokes.

Abhishek’s all-round show

Amritsar lad Abhishek Sharma scored 98 runs in four innings and bagged seven wickets. The all-rounder was the third highest wicket-taker — behind Anukul Sudhakar Roy (10 wickets) and Rahul Chahar (10) — with an economy rate of 4.17 in the series.

“I would rate my performance as decent. I am not satisfied with my batting performance and would have liked to score more runs, but I could not do so,” said the No. 5 batsman. Sharma said that trying too hard affected his batting. “Then Raman sir advised me not to try too hard and trust my stroke-making ability. The advice made things easier for me,” he said.

The duo’s next international assignment is the Under-19 Asia Cup in Malaysia in November this year.