“Shubman Gill has a lot to learn, but…”: GT star David Miller’s blunt on skipper | cricket news

Shubman Gill is facing a tough start to the captaincy of Gujarat Titans but senior batsman David Miller has backed him, saying the 24-year-old is fast “adjusting” to the role. The Titans under Gill’s captaincy – who were champions in 2022 and finished runners-up last year under Hardik Pandya – are placed ninth in the table with no real hopes of entering the playoffs. “Shubman is an exceptional player, as we all know. He is still young and has a lot to learn. But I think he is adjusting to captaincy really well.

“But I think it is also difficult because the margin is so small,” Miller said in the post-match press conference after GT’s four-wicket loss to Royal Challengers Bangalore here on Saturday.

Miller also blamed the absence of veteran fast bowler Mohammed Shami, who is recovering from ankle surgery, as a reason for his inability with the ball in the power play.

“Shami, obviously, was really exceptional in the power play. So, we feel like we’re missing him in the power play because he’s taken wickets and kept the economy rate down,” Miller said.

The Titans managed to score 92 runs in the power play against RCB while defending a modest total of 148 runs, thus tilting the match decisively in favor of the home team.

The Gujarat team remained weak with the bat in the power play and could only score 23 runs, which was the lowest score in that particular run by any team this season.

In fact, GT’s power play run-rate of 7.54 and strike-rate of 118.43 are the lowest among the 10 teams in this IPL, and they have also scored the fewest runs in the first six overs – 469.

The South African left-handed batsman admitted that the Titans have failed at the top with bat and ball.

“Their (RCB bowlers) length was much better than ours. But we missed our length and in the first two, two and a half, three overs they had already scored 50-60 runs.

He elaborated, “It seemed like they (GT bowlers) were a little too loaded. I think in the power play we were a little bit behind with the 8 balls in our batting and bowling.”

Reflecting on the season so far for the Titans, Miller said that while they have not been able to win tight games, the team has excelled in the past few years.

“There are some games we potentially should have won, but we lost and were very close. If we had won both those matches, things would have been very different.

“We won important moments (last year) and this year we could not win those important moments, so we lost close matches,” he said.

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