IPL 2023: Superstar Shubman Gill reveals the moment THAT changed the game for Gujarat against Mumbai

A Shubman Gill masterclass was on display at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Friday night. The young right-hander made this tournament his own with a breathtaking performance against Mumbai Indians in Qualifier 2. Gill slammed a stunning 129 off 60 balls – his third century in the past four innings and surpassed RCB captain Faf du Plessis for most runs this season. In 16 matches, Gill has 851 runs to his name.

Following the match that saw Gujarat beat Mumbai by 62 runs to seal the IPL 2023 Final berth, Gill admitted those three sixes off Akash Madhwal’s over changed the momentum for him and his team.

“For me, it’s all about playing ball to ball, assessing the situation over by over,” Gill told Star after winning the Player of the Match award. “Maybe the over in which I hit three sixes, that’s when I got the momentum to go big, and I realised maybe this is my day, and I have to make it big because it is a good wicket to bat on.”

Earlier, Gill was dropped on 30 by Tim David, and since that moment, he didn’t look back and hammered every bowler coming his way. While those three sixes remain the highlight of the evening, Gill hitting Cameron Green for a flat-batted six later in the inning stunned everyone too.

“[Six-hitting] is not a conscious decision. Obviously, you keep practising, you want to keep growing, want to keep evolving as a batsman,” Gill said. “But I feel the belief is more important, and that’s what I have had this year and the last year as well.”

The international run helped me – Gill

Since the Bangladesh tour last December, where Gill completed his first Test hundred, he carried that form in the white-ball series against New Zealand this year, becoming the fifth Indian batter to score a double hundred in ODIs. Against the Kiwis in the T20I series that followed, Gill, on this ground only, notched his maiden ton in the shortest format.

Heading into the IPL 2023 with such a superb touch, Gill ought to deliver, and he did.

“It helps when you are coming off a good international season with runs under the belt,” he said. “With me, I know it’s about starting [well]; I know once I start, I can keep going.

“Last year, from the West Indies tour, that’s when I shifted gears. I got injured in 2021 leading up to the IPL, and I was out for a couple of months. That’s when I started realising the areas to work on and made some technical changes in my batting around December when I was called up for the New Zealand series just after the T20 World Cup,” Gill added. 

With all eyes on the ultimate prize now, Gill and Gujarat Titans will aim to defend the crown when they take on MS Dhoni-led Chennai Super Kings on Sunday in Ahmedabad.