“You Get A Slap From…”: Virender Sehwag Blasts Shubman Gill’s Approach In PBKS vs GT Match | Cricket News

Shubman Gill was the top-scoring batter for Gujarat Titans as the Hardik Pandya-led franchise defeated Punjab Kings in a thrilling Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 clash on Thursday. Though Gill scored the most runs of all batters in the match, former India batter Virender Sehwag wasn’t impressed with the opening batter’s approach in the game. It was only after scoring a half-century that Gill looked to accelerate and Sehwag wasn’t happy seeing the star batter keep such a selfish approach.

In a chat on Cricbuzz, Sehwag warned Gill against keeping his personal ambitions ahead of the team’s as such an approach could’ve cost Gujarat the match.

“He scored 67 off 49 balls but when did he reach his fiifty? He reached his fifty off maybe 41-42 balls so in 7-8 balls he has scored 17 more runs. The acceleration came there, after he had reached his fifty. If even that had not happened then GT would have chasing maybe 17 instead off 7 in the last over,” Sehwag said.

Sehwag, who used to be one of the most fearsome batters in the game during his active days, said that he will get a slap from cricket if he thinks about personal milestones and not the team.

“You can’t think let me score a fifty and we will anyway win the match. This is cricket. The moment you think about your own performance (instead of the team), thappad padta hai cricket se (you will get a tight slap from cricket). You can’t think like that. If he had showed the same intent and played at close to a strike rate of 200 when he was nearing fifty then he could have reached his milestone a lot earlier and save more deliveries for his team,” Sehwag asserted.

Gill’s 67 off 49 helped Gujarat chase down the target of 154 runs. But, despite it being a mediocre total, GT had to wait till the penultimate ball of the over to complete the run-chase against PBKS.

Even the Titans skipper Hardik Pandya said that he doesn’t want such close games and would prefer seeing his batters scoring runs at a faster pace in the middle overs.