Reports suggest that Royal Challengers Bangalore have been targeting Shubman Gill to replace Virat Kohli as the franchise’s ‘brand’ in the Indian Premier League in the recent past.
Since the inception of the IPL in 2008, Royal Challengers Bangalore have consistently relied on their most experienced batsman, Virat Kohli. Although Kohli could not perform very well in the first few seasons, the RCB franchise supported him.
However, once Kohli got into form, there was no force to stop him as he became the greatest cricketer to play for the same franchise throughout his career. He also scored 8000+ runs in IPL history.
Shubman Gill was once considered to replace Virat Kohli’s legacy in the RCB franchise
Recently, Rohit Juglan had told that the franchise RCB was linked with Gujarat Titans before the IPL mega-auction in 2024. The Titans were then confused between giving priority to experienced spinner Rashid Khan or captain Shubman Gill.
Despite taking over the captaincy in IPL 2024, Gill, who was considered the poster boy of the Titans after Hardik Pandya’s departure from the franchise, was thrown into major uncertainty due to the franchise’s greater preference for spinner Rashid Khan. He also had an eye on giving the first retention spot to the Afghanistan captain.
Right then, RCB was looking for their next captain as Virat Kohli had turned down the offer to take up any such role. They also needed a player who could support Kohli to emerge as the next face of the franchise after Kohli’s departure, ending his decades-long legacy in the IPL.
Rohit Juglan said on his YouTube channel, “Gill has already established himself as one of the biggest brands of Indian cricket. We all know that after Virat Kohli, the player who can be the biggest brand of Indian cricket, its poster boy, will be captain Shubman Gill.”
“Just as the broadcasters and MRF had cashed in on Gill, RCB also wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to acquire a player who could emerge as their next big thing. At that time, there was only one name, Shubman Gill,” Juglan said.
Shubman Gill is India’s most successful cricketer in WTC history
Recently, Shubman Gill created a new WTC record for scoring the most centuries for India since the inception of the ICC World Test Championship in 2019. He left former captain Rohit Sharma behind with 10 centuries to his name.
He also surpassed Virat Kohli in reaching 5 centuries as India’s Test captain in a short time, behind only the great Sunil Gavaskar. As Indian Test captain, he has more centuries to his name than Rahul Dravid and has equaled legends like Sourav Ganguly and MS Dhoni.
Currently, he is ranked second in the list of highest run-scorers from Asia in WTC history. Pakistan’s Babar Azam is at the first place in scoring 3000 runs, while Shubman is at second place in the list with 2826 runs.
Shubman Gill will replace Virat Kohli in Fab4 – prediction of former cricketer
Former cricketer Aakash Chopra recently gave his opinion on the new Fab4 among the current youngsters of world cricket in a viral video. He chose two Indian cricketers, Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal, in the list.
While he showed confidence in Yashasvi Jaiswal’s ability despite not currently being a batsman in all three formats of the game, he ensured that Gill remains consistent in this list as he is expected to be Indian cricket’s ‘next big thing’, which he partly is right now.
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