Indian camp suffered a big blow on Friday after reports of Shubman Gill potentially missing the opening World Cup game against Australia emerged. But India men’s cricket team head coach Rahul Dravid remains hopeful about the in-form batter’s recovery before the mega clash against Australia at Chennai’s MA Chidambaram Stadium on October 8.
Speaking in the pre-match press conference in Chennai, Dravid confirmed the news of Gill’s absence due to fever but added that the player is feeling well as time passes. The former captain also revealed that the medical team is yet to rule out India’s top-ranked ODI batter and the final decision on Gill’s availability will be taken very late.
“He [Gill] is certainly feeling better today than he was yesterday, so that’s a positive, but the medical team is monitoring him on a day-to-day basis, so we’ll see,” Dravid said on Friday. “We’ve got 36 hours to go, so we’ll see how that goes. We’ll see whatever decision they take. But yeah, he’s feeling a little bit better today than he was yesterday.
“The medical team hasn’t ruled him out as yet. We’ll keep monitoring on a day-to-day basis. We’ve got 36 hours. We’ll wait to take a decision at the last minute if we possibly can. We’ll see how he feels the day after tomorrow.”
It’s a big blow for Rohit Sharma‘s side as Gill is enjoying a great run across formats lately. The right-hand opener was the leading run-getter in the recent Asia Cup 2023 and smashed 178 runs in two innings against Australia in ODIs last month. The management is likely to go with wicketkeeper batter Ishan Kishan if Gill fails to recover on time and also have KL Rahul as another option to open an innings on Sunday.
India World Cup squad: Rohit Sharma (c), Hardik Pandya (vc), Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Ravichandran Ashwin, Ishan Kishan (wk), Suryakumar Yadav