Shubman Gill: The Willow Wizard

SHUBMAN GILL’S story is that of perseverance, hard work, unbelievable talent, and also sacrifices of a family that moved out of its comfort zone to build a career for their beloved child. His father Lakhwinder Singh is a farmer, and so is his grandfather. They hail from Fazilka, a small village on the India-Pakistan border. We remember talking to Lakhwinder Singh just after his son had scored a stylish hundred against Pakistan in the U-19 World Cup. It was a near-flawless innings. You didn’t want to get up while this kid was batting. Tall and upright, languid and sinewy, all at the same time.

“We fully supported him in achieving his dream to become a cricketer. We dedicated 15 years to ensuring he fulfils his ambition. We even left our work and skipped several family functions, including marriage ceremonies of our relatives, so that we could dedicate as much time as we could,” Lakhwinder said that day. For the cute little kid, the apple of his grandfather’s eyes, the first toy was a bat that the old man had carved out of a tree trunk. “Shubman never liked any other toy. He always loved playing with the bat and ball. He used to play with a cricket bat and ball even while going to bed,” Lakhwinder had said back then. Leaving the assured and comfortable village life and farmlands in Fazilka and settling in a new city like Mohali wasn’t easy for the young Gill couple, with two little ones in tow. But pushy fathers can even move a rock. At times, it can have a downward spiralling effect, but then if the son also starts singing from the same hymn sheet, it becomes a lot easier. Both Lakhwinder and Shubman had the same dream—the father dreamt, and the son realised it.

The start of this journey is fascinating. On this journey, a small but significant role was played by former India left-arm seamer Karsan Ghavri, or Kadoo Bhai, as he is affectionately known in cricketing circles. As in the case of Cheteshwar Pujara, his father Arvind had sought Ghavri’s advice on whether to invest time and energy in his son’s career and got positive feedback. When it came to Shubman, it was completely the opposite, as it was Ghavri who told Lakhwinder that his son was a “special talent” who could go places if he worked hard. When we approached Kadoo Bhai to know about Gill’s initiation into mainstream Punjab cricket, he instantly agreed to share his thoughts. “I think it was 2009-10 and there was an all-India pace bowlers’ camp organised by the Punjab Cricket Association [PCA]. About 155 boys from in and around Punjab, some from Bihar, and Bengal had all come for that camp. They were all 18 to 19 years old. I remember Sandy [Sunrisers Hyderabad pacer Sandeep Sharma] was part of that camp,” Ghavri recalled. He, along with the team of coaches, first conducted an extensive physical training session for the boys and then the skills part was supposed to start. “Now when the nets were supposed to start, I saw there weren’t any batsmen arranged by the PCA. I spoke to Mr Pandove [PCA strongman Mahender Pandove] and Sushil Kapoor [longest-serving Punjab Ranji team manager] and asked them to arrange for some good batters. And they arranged.”

The practice was going on fine in Mohali when on one of the days, it started drizzling steadily. So, they had to stop the nets. It would have taken some time to make the indoor facility operational. “That day, I and one of my assistant coaches felt that till the nets started, let’s take a walk around. There was a nearby ground where we just causally went for a stroll. Now, there was a match going on there and it was all 12 or 13-year-old boys playing. They didn’t stop, even in that steady drizzle on a wet pitch. But what caught my attention was one of the boys who was batting. The technique and the kind of shots he played caught my attention. We just couldn’t move. That boy captivated me with his strokes,” Ghavri said. It was essential to know about the boy. So, they went around asking people, but nobody could tell them who the boy was. As Ghavri was leaving the ground, he saw one man standing under the shade of a tree, intensely watching the match and thought that maybe he could help. “I went up to him and asked what he was doing, standing alone at one side. He answered, ‘My son is playing.’”

Ghavri immediately asked who his son was, and he pointed to the boy that Ghavri so much wanted to know about. “That’s my son Shubman, and he is 12 years old,” Lakhwinder said. “I just told him that his son is a fantastic player and he should just send him to the PCA nets tomorrow. In my mind, I wanted Shubman to face the 18-year-olds, like Sandeep. Somewhere in my mind, I knew he could,” Ghavri recalled.

The next day, young Shubman walked into the PCA nets to face the 18 and 19 year olds. “He was fantastic. For a 12-year-old, he played straight and was not afraid of pace at that young age. They even bowled bouncers, but he wasn’t terrified. I told him, ‘Shubman tumko roz aana hai jitney din camp chalega/You need to come every day for the camp,’” Ghavri said. Call it irony, it was a camp to hunt good fast bowlers, but what they got was a first-class batsman. “I enquired and found that Shubman wasn’t a part of the U-14 Punjab team. I told Mr Pandove that he should be immediately put on that U-14 list. He was fantastic at that level and there was no looking back. But after that, I had no role to play. What he achieved was his hard work and talent,” Ghavri said. Shubman later had spoken about that camp which ended his fear of getting hit. “Ek baar ball aapko lag jaye toh darr khatam ho jata hai/Once you get hit by a ball, the fear of getting hurt goes away,” he had said in an interview on his former IPL franchise’s website. The journey of Shubman Gill had well and truly begun. And this IPL has only added gloss to what can be a journey that defines Indian cricket for the next decade

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