India’s explosive opener Shubman Gill played an unbeaten 126-run knock in the third and final T20I of the series against New Zealand. Gill’s T20I spot in the Indian team has been under scrutiny for quite some time now but then he shut down all his critics. He also surpassed Virat Kohli and became India’s highest scorer in an inning in T20Is.

The Virat Kohli and Shubman Gill bond is special! pic.twitter.com/o0chu3FsJG

— Mufaddal Vohra (@mufaddal_vohra) February 2, 2023

Post Gill’s heroics, Virat Kohli posted a story on his Instagram handle where he wrote,  “Sitaara (Star). The future is here”.

After scoring a century against New Zealand, the Punjab-based batter has a century in all three formats of the game. He also became the second youngest batter to achieve this feat. Ahmed Shahzad of Pakistan is at the no 1 spot, who achieved this milestone at the age of 22 years and 127 days.

.@ShubmanGill scored a remarkable 126* off just 63 deliveries and bagged the Player of the Match award as #TeamIndia registered a 168-run victory in the #INDvNZ T20I series decider 👏🏻👏🏻

Scorecard – https://t.co/1uCKYafzzD… #INDvNZ @mastercardindia pic.twitter.com/OhPzHbgxsK

— BCCI (@BCCI) February 1, 2023

“I was backing myself to get the big ones even in one-days and T20s, unfortunately, it didn’t happen for me in the Sri Lanka series,” said the 23-year-old Gill.

“When you are representing your country, I don’t think there is any kind of fatigue. I always wanted to play for India and being fortunate enough to play all three formats, it is a blessing”, he added.

Squads:

India: Shubman Gill, Ishan Kishan(w), Rahul Tripathi, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya(c), Deepak Hooda, Washington Sundar, Shivam Mavi, Arshdeep Singh, Umran Malik, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Jitesh Sharma, Mukesh Kumar, Prithvi Shaw.

New Zealand: Finn Allen, Devon Conway(w), Mark Chapman, Glenn Phillips, Daryl Mitchell, Michael Bracewell, Mitchell Santner(c), Lockie Ferguson, Ish Sodhi, Blair Tickner, Jacob Duffy, Michael Rippon, Dane Cleaver, Henry Shipley, Ben Lister.