Despite their failure to make the playoffs in the 2024 Indian Premier League, Matthew Hayden, a former opener for Australia, supported the Gujarat Titans’ decision to give Shubman Gill the captaincy. Rain in Ahmedabad caused their season’s final home game against KKR at Narendra Modi Stadium to be cancelled, eliminating GT from the playoff chase on Monday.
Gujarat made it to the final last year, led by Hardik Pandya, after winning the IPL title in their inaugural year. But even with Rashid Khan and Kane Williamson on the team, Shubman Gill became one of the league’s youngest captains when GT gave him the armband following Hardik’s trade to MI.
In his interaction with Star Sports, Mathew Hayden said, “I believe anything that Shubman Gill should do to improve himself as a leader (he should),”Once, Steve Waugh told us as a group, ‘Don’t wait for me to take the initiative. Both on and off the field, take the lead for yourself. And you’ll return to your franchises and your individual states. Eventually, you will approach me as your national captain and come in and ease my workload.”
Hyden further added, “I really think that you should strive to bite off more than you can chew. When the highs occur, he can stay close to Earth thanks to the solid support system that surrounds him. Fast and thick, they have arrived. They’ve arrived already. The men in his gang regard and believe him. He continued, “I’m confident he can learn some new techniques, and he will figure out various approaches going forward for some aspects of his batting.”
Just 426 runs have been scored in 12 games as captain by Shubman Gill, who won the Orange Cap the previous year after scoring 890 runs in 17 games. The 24-year-old found it difficult to use the bat as authoritatively as he did during his IPL tenure.