‘Have faith in both of them’ – India coach throws weight behing under-fire Shubman Gill, Suryakumar Yadav

India’s assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate has come out in support of Shubman Gill and Suryakumar Yadav amid their underwhelming outings with the bat of late. Their combined tally across two games so far reads 21, with Shubman scoring 4 and 0 and Suryakumar 12 and 5 going into the third T20I in Dharamsala.

Ten Doeschate shared that he was impressed with Gill exhibiting a “change in mentality” during the latter stages of the recent white-ball series in Australia. He also said justified each one of Gill’s dismissals in this series and said he will not be overanalysing them. 

“Shubman, I saw some good signs of a change in mentality on the back end of that Australian tour. I wouldn’t read too much into these two dismissals in this series. In the first game, we asked the guys to go out there and attack the powerplay, and it wasn’t a great wicket at Cuttack, so I’ll let him off for that one. Today, I thought he got a good ball that can happen when you’re short on form,” stated ten Doeschate, as quoted by India Today.

The former Netherlands all-rounder mentioned that like Gill’s potential and proven prowess, even Suryakumar holds the same amount of trust from the management’s end.

“But we also know his [Gill’s] class. You look at his IPL record, he stacks up 700–800 runs. We believe in his class and we believe he will come good. It’s exactly the same with Suryakumar. As you mentioned about the leadership roles, we’re quite far down the road now with our planning and how we’ve set the team up. I have absolute faith in both of them coming good at the right time for us,” he added.

India, who took a lead by winning the first T20I in Cuttack by 101 runs, were convincingly defeated by the Proteas in Mullanpur by 51 runs as they were bundled out for 162 while chasing 214, with Quinton de Kock and Ottneil Baartman starring for the opposition. The third match is scheduled to be played at the Himachal Pradesh Cricket Association (HPCA) Stadium in Dharamsala on December 14.