TimesofIndia.com at Ahmedabad: Shabman Gul And Sai Sudharsan is not just scoring runs. He is redefining the batting partnership in T20 cricket. With another season of 700-plus runs each, Gujarat Titans’ opening pair have entered elite territory. He once matched and surpassed the records held by legends like Chris Gayle, Virat Kohli, AB de Villiers in the Indian Premier League (IPL). Their remarkable consistency and understanding at the top has made them one of the most capable batting pairs the format has ever witnessed.The Gujarat titans duo now have eight century partnerships for the opening wicket, joint-most in men’s T20 cricket with Pakistan’s Babar Azam and Mohammad Rizwan. Their 2,944 runs together in the IPL is already the second-highest partnership in the tournament’s history, trailing only Virat Kohli and AB de Villiers’ 3,123 runs between 2011 and 2020.Notably, Gill and Sudharsan have achieved this feat only since IPL 2022, when Sudharsan was still finding his feet in GT’s debut season. His individual numbers have been equally impressive. After Sudharsan claimed the Orange Cap last year with 759 runs and Gill finished fourth with 650, the duo dominated the chart again in 2026, with Gill scoring 722 runs and Sudharsan 710, both trailing only Vibhu Suryavanshi. Gill has also held a slight edge in scoring rate this season, striking at 163.71 compared to Sudarsan’s 159.55, being particularly aggressive in the powerplay, where he has scored 159.20 compared to his teammate’s 145.02.At times, GT has also been criticized for their over-reliance on this pairing. However, their appetite for runs was never in doubt.Shubman and Sai are more traditional openers. They prefer to pick a gap instead of going bang-bang. His strength is playing decent cricket shots, which was evident during his 167-run stand against Rajasthan Royals in Qualifier 2.At the pre-final press conference in Milanpur after GT’s win over RR, Gill admitted how he and Sai had developed a bond on and off the field over the years.“We spend a lot of time together in the IPL, on the field, off the field, and then we are in the Test team, so we have a lot of interaction,” he told reporters.
“There are things that, we talk about outside of cricket. Not just for them, but I understand, there are many players in our team who also play for the country, and hopefully we are going to play together for a long time. It is very important for us to know each other well, to have a great equation, which automatically goes beyond field performance,” he added. Gill was particularly effusive in his praise of his GT opening partner, and spoke at length about the power of the southpaw. “When I first started playing in the IPL, one of the challenges I faced was to keep playing matches with the same intensity. I think that’s one of Sai’s greatest strengths,” he said. “You play a lot of matches, there may be days when mentally you don’t hit the mark, or physically you don’t feel up to the mark, but it’s not that easy to have the same intensity in all the matches and to be consistent in your preparation, in your routine, and he is someone who is very consistent in his routine outside of cricket. So that’s what makes him consistent on the field as well,” Gill added. GT’s Director of Cricket Vikram Solanki also praised the duo’s appetite for runs. “It’s on the back of a lot of hard work. I can only imagine all the work that Shubman has done throughout his career to get to where he is with his batting. He’s a phenomenal young man. And sometimes you have to realize that he’s still a young man. And to play the cricket that he is, to bat the way he is, is just extraordinary.“And Sai is no less. He may be a bit shorter in his journey, but you can see he takes a good example from Shubman and understands that his skills are actually what you and I would look at as batsmanship, the traditional form of batting. But there’s no doubt in my mind that if a situation requires him to increase the run-rate and the wicket, he can actually play to them. And I think that is his best quality, his adaptability, looking at any kind of situation, looking at any wicket, looking at any opponent. This coupled with the fact that they have an immense hunger to score runs. Good habits,” Solanki said at the press conference after the GT win.Records have followed Gayle and Sudharsan wherever they have batted this season, but neither the stats nor the milestones matter as much as what awaits in the final. One last contribution this season and another statement at the top could turn a remarkable season into a championship-winning one.
