Team India star Abhishek Sharma has narrated a hilarious incident involving Shubman Gill from their U16 days. The left-handed batter revealed that Gill has the strange talent of changing his expression quickly and recalled how he wasn't caught despite committing mischief.
Gill and Abhishek have been playing alongside themselves since junior days and most recently opened the innings in Asia Cup 2025, forging a fearsome partnership. While Gill couldn't quite stamp his authority in the tournament, Abhishek thrived to finish as the highest run-getter of the tournament with 314 runs.
Speaking to Gaurav Kapoor during Breakfast with Champions, he revealed:
"Main age group mein shaitaaniyan karke kabhi nahin fasa hoon. Woh hai Shubman. Aapko main ek incident batata hoon. Hum Dharamshala mein they U-16 team mein. Himachal ke, Delhi ke, Punjab ke sab mil gaye hain. Humaara hotel sirf 500 meter door tha Dharamsala stadium se. Usme bhi hum bus se jaate they. Driver gaane bandh kar diya tha, humne gaane laga diye Punjabi. Usne kaha nahin lagaane hain gaane toh behas ho gayi. Sabse zyaada jisne cheekha peeche se woh hai Shubman tha.
(As a kid there is only one kid who has never been caught doing mischief. That is Shubman. I will tell you an incident. We were in Dharamsala during our U16 days. Kids from Himachal Pradesh, Delhi and Punjab, imagine we were all together. Our hotel was just 500m away from the Dharamsala Stadium. We used to go there by bus. The driver was stopping songs and we wanted to play Punjabi music. He had said, “I don’t want to play all this, stop all this. We got into an argument and the person who was shouting the loudest from the back was Shubman.)
"Coaches tak baat paunch gayi. 2-3 driver aa gaye aur bolne lage, 'Aapke bacchon ne battameezi ki hai. Coaches ne bola unko bataane kaunse ladke they, main tha, Prabh tha, aur 5th player tha Shubman. Coach ne kaha yeh tha, yeh tha, lekin Shubman ka naam nahin liya. Hum 4 ko bahar bulaake, 'yeh letter hai, is pe sign karo. Letter thi vapas ghar bhejne. Mujhe dukh hua yeh kaise bahar nahin aaya, jiski vajah se hum yahan khade hain. Usme woh talent hai ki woh expression change kar sakta hai."
(The incident got escalated to the coaches. All the drivers came together and said, “Your kids have misbehaved". First, I was sad about being sent back, but more sad about Shubman not getting caught. The person who started this, the person because of whom we were standing there. He had a talent that he could change his expressions.)
Shubman Gill captaining India in home Tests vs West Indies
Meanwhile, Gill has faced a short turnaround time following Asia Cup 2025 final as he is battling it out in the home Test series against the West Indies. Visiting skipper Roston Chase had won the toss and opted to bat first.
Team India playing XI: Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Shubman Gill (c), Dhruv Jurel (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj.
West Indies playing XI: Tagenarine Chanderpaul, John Campbell, Alick Athanaze, Brandon King, Shai Hope (wk), Roston Chase (c), Justin Greaves, Jomel Warrican, Khary Pierre, Johann Layne, Jayden Seales.
