Gujarat Titans are under new management with Shubman Gill succeeding Hardik Pandya as captain of the franchise that made the final in each of the two years they've been involved in the tournament.

Although he is one of the best batters in the world in limited-overs cricket at present, and is coming into the IPL having discovered that his Test game has improved as well, scoring 452 runs against England in the recently concluded five-match series, Gill does not have a lot of experience as captain at the highest levels of the game and that brings a little bit of intrigue to how the Titans will go about their business this year.

"The whole of India, not only me," he added. "He is that kind of player. He is someone who is looking to play and looking to do well in all three formats. So we as a franchise, as a support staff, are really excited to help him grow as a person more than as a captain. If he grows as a person, then he will definitely be a better captain going forward.

"And you know, Hardik also did not captain anywhere before he captained GT. Now there are ten teams. This is not the first example. You will see more and more people, you know, somebody like Shreyas Iyer, even Nitish Rana did captaincy for KKR. So this is a great experience for all these guys and let's see who capitalises on that and move ahead, again, first as a person then as a player."

Gill is also one of the Titans' key batters, having scored 1373 runs at a strike rate of 147.79 - the highest over the last two years of the IPL. Their batting coach Gary Kirsten believes captaincy is a good step up for him.

"I think the leadership is going to be an important role for him and I know he's really keen to do the job and we, as coaches, just need to assist him in making sure he's getting the best out of his players and he's leading the team appropriately and in the way we want him to lead," Kirsten said. "He's a quality player. He's a thoroughly nice person. He's got massive motivation and determination as an individual, which we've seen when playing for India. But like any new leader, he's starting from scratch and he's going to be met with challenges along the way and we, as coaches, will just have to assist him along the way."


Ashish Nehra, their head coach told reporters on Saturday, that he was "very excited to see how Gill operates."
Team India are in a tough situation during the ongoing ODI series against Sri Lanka after tying the first match while losing the second clash by a margin of 32 runs. Notably, the defeat comes at a time when Men in Blue were high on confidence with the whitewash in T20I series and the comeback of skipper Rohit Sharma and veteran batter Virat Kohli.

With the Men in Blue now in a dire situation needing to win the 3rd ODI match in order to save face, questions have started to be raised about the new approach taken by the team after Gautam Gambhir took over as the new head coach. After the tied 1st encounter, social media users had questioned the need for giving the ball to Shubman Gill who gave away 14 runs in 1 over during a low scoring game.

Ahead of the start of 2nd encounter, even Gambhir's former teammate, Ashish Nehra raised questions about the new coach's need to bring back Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli back for the ODI series given that he knows both these players really well and has shared the dressing room with them in the past. Nehra's contention was that Rohit and Virat's place could have been better utilized by giving the chance to a younger player instead.

Speaking to Sony Sports prior to the match, Nehra said, “The next series India play is 2-3 months later, a rare thing for us. So for players like Rohit and Kohli...I feel there was a better chance of giving opportunities to other players during this series."