IPL 2024: Not only me, whole India excited to see how Shubman Gill captains, says GT coach Ashish Nehra

Shubman Gill was appointed as Gujarat Titans’ captain following Hardik Pandya’s move to MI.

Gujarat Titans (GT) head coach Ashish Nehra has backed the newly appointed captain Shubman Gill, stating that all eyes will be on him as the whole India would like to see how he performs in his new role as a leader in upcoming season of the Indian Premier League (IPL 2024) season.

Indian all-rounder Hardik Pandya shifted his base back to Mumbai Indians (MI) in an all-cash trade deal before the IPL 2024 mini-auction that took place in December 2023. The 2022 IPL champions then decided to hand over the leadership role to the young Indian star Gill, despite having big names like Kane Williamson and Rashid Khan in their line-up.

Although Shubman Gill had no experience in IPL as a leader, GT head coach Nehra is excited to see how the young lad will operate during the IPL 2024 season with the additional responsibility of being the skipper of the former champions.

Nehra also stated that Gill is someone who is looking to do well in all three formats of the game, and the Gujarat-based franchise role will be to help him grow as a person more than as a skipper.

“The whole of India, not only me,” he added. “He is that kind of player. He is someone who is looking to play and looking to do well in all three formats. So we as a franchise, as a support staff, are really excited to help him grow as a person more than as a captain. If he grows as a person, then he will definitely be a better captain going forward,” Ashish Nehra said as quoted by ESPN Cricinfo.

Shubman Gill not the first example: Ashish Nehra opens up on IPL captaincy

The former Indian bowler also drew parallels to the situation when Hardik Pandya was appointed as the GT team leader back in 2022 edition of the tournament. Nehra said that Pandya didn’t have any experience leading an IPL team, but when Hardik became the captain of the Titans, he succeeded well.

The former GT skipper Pandya led the Titans to win their maiden IPL trophy in 2022, and he helped GT reach finals in the 2023 edition as well.

“And you know, Hardik also did not captain anywhere before he captained GT. Now there are ten teams. This is not the first example. You will see more and more people, you know, somebody like Shreyas Iyer, even Nitish Rana did captaincy for KKR. So this is a great experience for all these guys and let’s see who capitalises on that and move ahead, again, first as a person then as a player,” said Nehra.

GT updated squad for IPL 2024

Shubman Gill (c), David Miller, Matthew Wade, Wriddhiman Saha, Kane Williamson, Abhinav Manohar, B. Sai Sudharsan, Darshan Nalkande, Vijay Shankar, Jayant Yadav, Rahul Tewatia, Noor Ahmad, Sai Kishore, Rashid Khan, Joshua Little, Mohit Sharma, Azmatullah Omarzai, Umesh Yadav, Shahrukh Khan, Sushant Mishra, Kartik Tyagi, Manav Suthar, Spencer Johnson.

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