India’s Test and ODI captain Shubman Gill has made it clear that he has nothing to prove to anyone in IPL 2026, even though the tournament comes barely a month after him. was left out of India’s T20 World Cup squad. Gill underlined his consistency with the bat in the IPL over the years and insisted that he will continue to score runs and contribute to his side’s title efforts in the upcoming season, which begins on March 28.
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Gill was speaking to the press in Ahmedabad on Thursday, March 26, alongside Gujarat Titans head coach Ashish Nehra, when asked if IPL 2026 would serve as a platform to regain his place in India’s T20I side.
“Not at all sir. I don’t have anything to prove to anyone. If you look at the last three or four IPL seasons, I have scored the most runs in the tournament. I don’t think I have anything to prove, especially this season.”
Also read: In time, Shubman Gill will become the captain of Gujarat Titans
“In the four years I’ve played for this team, we’ve done fairly well as a unit and I’ve done well as a batsman. I don’t feel the need to prove my worth to anyone. I just need to continue to do what I’ve been doing for the last four years. We’ve got to stay consistent as a team – something I believe we’ve been – and if we can keep that up, I believe we can win the trophy.”
VIDEO | When asked at the IPL 2026 pre-season press conference if he was missing a successful T20 World Cup campaign, Indian Test captain Shubman Gill (@ShubmanGill) says that he doesn’t regret anything and that he doesn’t have to prove his skills to anyone because he was a prolific shooter, pic.twitter.com/Dprkoprg94— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News) March 26, 2026
Gill, who was named India’s Test captain after Rohit Sharma retired from the format last year, has also been elevated to the ODI captaincy role till the end of 2025. There has been growing speculation that the team management and the BCCI hierarchy are grooming him as India’s next all-format captain.
The Gujarat Titans skipper was named India’s vice-captain in T20Is during last year’s Asia Cup, which also marked his return to the format after almost a year. To accommodate Gill at the top of the order, India broke the successful opening combination of Sanju Samson and Abhishek Sharma.
However, Gill struggled to make the most of his opportunities, with questions raised over his strike rate in T20Is – an area where both Samson and Abhishek offered more influence at the top. Gill managed just 291 runs from 15 T20I matches in 2025 at a strike rate of 137.26 without registering a single fifty-plus score.
He was eventually dropped from both the T20 World Cup squad and the squad for the bilateral series against New Zealand that preceded it.
The road back now looks tough, with Abhishek Sharma, Sanju Samson and Ishan Kishan – who replaced Gill in the line-up – all impressing during the T20 World Cup, which India won.
However, as Gill himself pointed out, he has been among the leading run-scorers in the IPL in recent years, with his strike rate improving noticeably. In 2025, he amassed 650 runs in 15 matches at a strike rate of 155.87 – well up on his career 138.71 in the tournament.
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Issued by:
Akshay Ramesh
Published on:
26 March 2026 19:34 IST
