Has tweak from unorthodox to more classical stance hampered Shubman Gill's T20 game?

New Delhi: To be or not to be could well be the dilemma in Shubman Gill’s mind as he crisscrosses formats, having tweaked his technique from an unorthodox style to a more classical one that is not quite yielding the returns he may have envisaged in T20 Internationals.

Gill, who produced a coming-of-age performance in his debut series as Test captain against England with a staggering 754 runs, has not quite been able to showcase the same form in the shortest format.

Not to forget, he has effectively been pitchforked into the role in place of a well-settled Sanju Samson, who had struck three international hundreds in the previous season.

But with the bigger picture of all-format captaincy in mind and Indian cricket yearning for its next major brand after Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, Gill being handed the vice-captaincy has hardly come as a surprise.

The challenge, however, lies in a packed calendar that allows for very little downtime and the mindset of a 26-year-old who wants to be constantly involved, making it difficult to compartmentalise technical adjustments as he moves from Tests to T20Is and back though the transition appears less demanding in the ODI format.

Gill’s returns in T20Is in 2025 have been modest when compared to those of his best friend and opening partner Abhishek Sharma, who has enjoyed a rollicking season so far.

In the 13 T20Is Gill has played this year, he scored 263 runs from 183 balls at a strike rate of 143-plus, hitting only four sixes -- two of them in the powerplay.

By contrast, Abhishek has played 18 matches in 2025, scoring 773 runs from 397 balls at a strike rate of 188.5, including 48 sixes -- an average of nearly three per match.

Gill’s approach is yet to fully align with Team India’s "attack-at-all-costs" T20 template, which in cricketing parlance is often framed as freedom of expression.

A classical stance that's perhaps curbing his range?

The PTI spoke to a former NCA coach, who has worked with batters in an IPL franchise to understand the problem.

"When Gill burst into the international scene in 2019 till the last Border-Gavaskar Trophy, if one revisits most of his flamboyant knocks in white ball cricket, one is likely to witness that his bat is angled towards third slip or gull from where it is coming down and meeting the ball," the former India player and also an Level 3 coach told PTI on conditions of anonymity.

"A stance like that always helps to play shots square off the wicket, especially the horiziontal bat shot like pull and Gill is as good a puller as one would find in world cricket," he said.

However the downside of that particular stance, particularly in Test cricket, is that incoming delivery would regularly find his pads or breach his defence hitting the stumps.

A tremendously hard-working cricketer, Gill worked on his technique before the England series, which saw him play closer to his body with a straighter bat flow, unlike earlier when the bat came down from the third-slip or gully region.

"Playing straight is a virtue that always pays dividends in Test cricket as a straight bat-path enables you to play inside the 'V'. So the scoring shots will include the straight shots, cover drives, off drives and on-drives. But with that stance, you cannot easily play the pull-shot or the slashes over point. It is not impossible but difficult as then your body alignment also changes."

In T20s, even in Powerplays, the fast bowlers, who clock north of 135 clicks would have their natural length slightly pulled back at around 8 metres (back of the length). For that kind of length bowled during Powerplay, Gill might have to revert back to the horizontal bat shots and this adjustment in technique from format to format is more of a mental game.

With only 9 games left before the start of the T20 World Cup, Gautam Gambhir would want one of his batting mainstays to get his T20 batting rhythm back.