Will the IPL final answer what Gill and Patidar won't say about the T20I selection?

Nobody donates anything on the eve of the IPL final. That’s an unwritten rule. But the two captains who will walk out at the Narendra Modi Stadium on Sunday told you all you needed to know during the final. Not in what they said, but how they said it.

Rajat Patidar went first on Saturday night in Ahmedabad. When asked about India’s T20I setup, his place in it, the options, picked up the dead bat and left it there.

“The answer to your first question is that I am not looking forward to any selection regarding India. So I am not looking forward to it.”

Dot. Another question.

Shubman Gill spoke about the same in the lead up to the grand final. He felt warmer. More considered. But no less carefully.

“I will be happy to play if I am selected in the T20 team. And honestly, I want to keep working hard. It doesn’t matter what format it is. I want to keep improving as a T20, ODI and Test batter. Cricket is that kind of game — you can never be perfect, but of course you strive for that and I like that.”

Different answers. Different men. Same final tomorrow at Narendra Modi Stadium.

GILL AND PATIDAR IN THE MIX?

Chatting exists for a reason. With India is looking to move on from Suryakumar Yadav’s T20I captaincy after winning the World Cup earlier this year, names were published — Sanju Samson, Tilak Varma, Shreyas Iyer. But the IPL has a habit of forcing selectors’ hands, and both Patidar and Gill have spent the last two months making it very difficult to avoid that conversation.

Patidar was the engine room of Royal Challengers Bengaluru’s middle order – 486 runs at a strike rate nudging 200. But the number that really turns heads came in Qualifier 1 against Gujarat Titans in Dharamsala, where he stepped in and smashed 93 off 33 balls against one of the best in T20 competition – Kaso Moham in Sigi’s full-tilt bowling attack. and it seemed almost unfair. They were the kind of exchanges that change the terms of the conversation.

Gill, meanwhile, did what he always did – quietly, relentlessly collected. Despite being vice-captain, he was dropped from the T20 World Cup squad, returned to the IPL and scored 722 runs at a strike rate of 163.72, his best in the format. This includes a dominant hundred in the virtual semi-final against the Jofra Archer-led Rajasthan Royals in Chandigarh.

DIFFERENT OPTICS

However, the optics around the two men could not be more different.

Gill carries the weight of inevitability. He is already India’s ODI and Test captain. Five days after that final, he heads to New Chandigarh to lead the Test side against Afghanistan. He is being deliberately and consciously built as the next face of Indian cricket. So the T20I question is almost an annoying footnote – except that the traffic jam at the top of the T20I batting order is, as someone put it, worse than the Silk Board junction in Bengaluru, and Gill knows it.

Patidar carries something quieter. The 32-year-old from Madhya Pradesh has spent the better part of his career flying just under the radar – one ODI cap in 2022, three Test appearances in 2024 and then largely silence from the selection table. Nothing was ever handed to him. Everything he’s earned, he’s earned out loud, in the biggest moments, in front of the biggest crowds.

If RCB win on Sunday, they will become only the third captain in IPL history – after MS Dhoni and Rohit Sharma – to win back-to-back titles. This is no small thing. This is the thing that will change the story of a cricketer forever.

But ask him directly and he won’t give you anything.

Right after the press conference was over, Patidar was at the venue to conduct an optional training session for RCB. Virat Kohli was not there in the opening session. Patidar was – he bowled short deliveries into the empty stands, one after the other, as if the conversation had never happened. Like tomorrow is all there is.

It’s an honest answer to every T20I question for both men. Win tomorrow. Everything else follows.

The selectors will meet to select the team for India’s T20I series against Ireland and England – which will be held from June 26 to July 11 – not long after the final whistle is blown at this stadium. If you knock on the statement on Sunday, it will be very difficult to keep both names out of this room.

They know it. They just won’t say it.

– The end

Issued by:

Akshay Ramesh

Published on:

30 May 2026 18:37 IST