"He was scoring faster than Abhishek" - Former batter's blunt assessment of Shubman Gill amid AUS vs IND 2025 T20Is

Former batter Aakash Chopra made a blunt assessment of Shubman Gill's performance amid the T20I series between Australia and India. The Men in Blue won the fourth T20I by 48 runs on Thursday, November 6, to take a 2-1 lead with one game remaining.

Shubman Gill scored 46 runs off 39 balls with four boundaries and a six at a strike-rate of 117.94. He had hit three boundaries in his first 11 balls but could not continue batting with the same momentum. Aakash Chopra reckoned that the pressure would be on Gill to score runs and bat according to the aggressive style of play in T20Is, established by the team in recent times.

"Shubman Gill might be feeling some pressure because it is important to score runs now. If you look at his first 10-12 balls, he was scoring faster than Abhishek. Then suddenly then he slowed down. The runs are less. He had played a lot of balls. Let's be fair, when you are batting first, and the team has a template, a philosophy, and an ideology around how they want to play, then you try your best to fit into that. Gill will have to do it," he said on his YouTube channel.

The former batter added that the Indian team would want Gill to bat through and score big if he continued playing the way he was. However, his not batting till the end would then put pressure on the other batters. Therefore, Chopra opined that Gill would have to up his anti.

"They would be thinking either he plays all the overs and stays till the end and takes them to a good total. But if it doesn't happen like that, the ones coming next try to hit more and then you lose a lot of wickets. That puts a lot of pressure. Gill has to score and if he does at a faster pace then even 30-35 is okay. But he may be thinking 30-35 is not enough because there is more scrutiny on him. It is a very strange situation. There is the kind of pressure on him you generally don't associate with a captain or a vice-captain. Here, I feel he is under pressure and he has to figure it out."

Aakash Chopra expressed the need for Gill to score runs as he has been made the vice-captain and the opener. With the T20 World Cup soon approaching, he reckoned that the team would not want to tinker a lot. So far in the series, Gill has made 103 runs from four matches at an average of 34.33 and a strike-rate of 127.16.

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"There is a lack of runs from him in terms of the quantity" - Aakash Chopra on Indian T20I captain

Indian T20I captain Suryakumar Yadav's form has also been a matter of concern. The right-hander struggled throughout the Asia Cup 2025, scoring just 72 runs from six innings at an average of 18 and a strike-rate of 101.40.

While he has been batting better in the Australia T20Is, his wait for a big score continues. Suryakumar Yadav has not been able to score a single half-century in the four matches.

Aakash Chopra highlighted that Suryakumar Yadav was batting well but lacked the quantity of runs expected of him.

"Even Suryakumar Yadav has not scored runs. It looked like he would get a 50-plus score in Australia but the search for that is still on. He was batting well in Canberra, and it started raining. He is batting well, but there is no certainty about the batting order, so there is pressure on him too. There is a lack of runs from him in terms of the quantity of runs."

He looked good for his unbeaten 24-ball 39 in the first game, but was unfortunate as the fixture was eventually washed out. In the second game, he made just a single run. The right-hander scored quickfire 20s in the next two T20Is but failed to convert the starts into a big score.