Ricky Ponting lauds Shubman Gill, says he deserves to be the No. 1 ranked batter

Former Australian skipper Ricky Ponting has showered praise on Shubman Gill for his consistent form in the recent past. Gill scored a fine knock of 101 runs off 129 balls in the Champions Trophy clash against Bangladesh at Dubai on Thursday.

Before the eight-team tournament started, Gill scored 259 runs in three ODIs against England at an average of 86.33 and thus was awarded Player of the Series. After performing consistently, Gill climbed to the top of the ICC ODI batting rankings with 796 rating points.

“He thoroughly deserves to be the number one ranked batsman in the world at the moment and it’s a great sign for India that he’s got his account underway early in the first game of a Champions Trophy,” Ponting said on ICC Review.

“He’s been a very, very good international player for a number of years. He hasn’t sort of transferred that over into Test Match cricket yet, but his white ball cricket over the last three or four years has been outstanding. Look, he’s a big game player as well. He’s played really well in IPLs over the last couple of years, obviously being captain of his franchise there,” Ponting added.

The two-time World Cup winning captain added that the white ball game really suits Gill’s style of play at the top level.

“I just think that the white ball game really suits his style of play. One day cricket, he can come out and be nice and aggressive early on in the power play with the field up, get some boundaries away early by playing good, naturally aggressive cricketing shots,” Ponting elaborated.

“He’s not a big hitter, he’s not anyone that goes out there and tries to do anything outside of the way that he can naturally play. He just scores, he scores boundaries almost at will against fast bowling, against the white ball,” he added.

Gill has amassed 2667 runs in 51 ODI matches at a splendid average of 62.51 and a strike rate of 100.79.