ZIM vs IND: Abhishek Sharma To Make India Debut Against Zimbabwe In First T20I, Confirms Shubman Gill

Abhishek Sharma got a maiden India call-up for the tour of Zimbabwe following his impressive show with the bat for Sunrisers Hyderabad in IPL 2024.

Harare: India captain Shubman Gill has confirmed that he will be opening the batting with Abhishek Sharma against Zimbabwe in the first T20I of the five-match series on Saturday. With the likes of Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli and Ravindra Jadeja announcing their T20I retirements and the unavailability of the other senior players, the BCCI named a young-looking team with Shubman Gill as the captain.

Yashasvi Jaiswal, who was a part of India’s T20 World Cup-winning Indian team, is yet to arrive in Zimbabwe, thus paving the way for Sharma to make his India debut. That pushes Ruturaj Gaikwad to bat at No.3 with another likely debutant Riyan Parag at No.4.

“Yes, me and Abhishek Sharma will open the batting with Ruturaj Gaikwad coming at one down,” Gill confirmed on Friday at the pre-match press conference. Gill had led Gujarat Titans in the IPL after Hardik Pandya took over the captaincy of Mumbai Indians.

The right-hander said he was banking on that experience in Zimbabwe. “I’ve learnt a lot of lessons when I captained my IPL team for the first time. I got to know a lot more things about myself and a lot more things about the leadership perspective,” he said. “I felt most of the challenges that you face as a captain are more mental, how you prepare the boys. Everyone’s got the skill set, it’s about how you can give them (other players) the confidence to be able to deliver that skill set on the field.”

Gill said the young Indian team will gain a lot of experience and get some much-needed exposure to international cricket during the series against Zimbabwe. “If you look at the team, it’s a quite different team from the one that played in the World Cup. There are a lot of young players in the team, including myself.

“We just want to give the players experience and what it is like to play at the international level because a lot of the players haven’t played that many matches and some of the players haven’t even made their debut.  I think that is our aim for the series to give them more international exposure and experience.”