New Delhi [India], October 2 : Indian star opening batter Abhishek Sharma shared a hilarious bus incident with India's Test skipper Shubman Gill from their under-16 days.
Sharma and Gill, two talented cricketers from Punjab, have been playing together since childhood, forging a strong bond that extends beyond the cricket field.
The duo progressed through the ranks together, representing Punjab in domestic cricket and eventually becoming part of the Indian U-19 team that won the 2018 World Cup.
Now, they're teammates in the Indian national team, with Sharma impressing in T20Is and Gill excelling across all formats.
"Ek insaan hai jo age group cricket mein kabhi shaitaniyaan krta nahi fassa, Shubman Gill. Once we were having an under-16 level practice, and kids from Punjab, Delhi, and HP had come. Imagine all of these kids coming together. Our hotel was 500 m away from the Dharamshala stadium. We used to go by bus. So the driver would not play songs, but we wanted to play Punjabi songs. We argued. The one shouting the most from the back was Shubman," Sharma said on the Breakfast with Champions show.
"The situation escalated and reached the coaches, and two to three drivers came together. They informed the coaches that the kids had misbehaved, and the coaches asked them to identify the misbehaving kids. There were 4-5 kids max: me, Prabhsimran, and the 5th was Shubman. We all stood in a line, and the coach would point to us and ask the drivers, "Was he there?" (misbehaving), and when he pointed to Shubman, the driver said no. I was so shocked," he added.
Sharma continued, "All of us were made to sign a letter which said we had to go back home. First, I was sad that I had to go, I was also sad why was he (Gill) not caught? The person who had started all this. He had a talent that he could change his expressions. If everyone was laughing, he could turn serious. Which is not there in most of us Punjabis. He had made that "bechara" face that day."
The duo of Sharma and Gill opened for India in the recently concluded T20 Asia Cup. Sharma, with 314 runs in seven innings, finished as the leading run scorer of the tournament, while Gill slammed 127 runs in seven innings.
Sharma broke the record that had lasted for almost five years by reaching the highest-ever rating on the ICC Men's T20I Batter Rankings earlier this week. He has reached a rating of 931 points following a stylish half-century during India's triumphant victory over Sri Lanka at the Asia Cup, and in the process, overtook the previous best rating of 919 points, which was achieved by England right-hander Dawid Malan in 2020.
Whereas Gill made a remarkable start to his captaincy, scoring four centuries against England. Following the England series, he was named vice-captain of India's T20 Asia Cup team.
Gill ended up as a leading run-getter in the series, with a massive 754 runs in 10 innings at an average of 75.40 and four centuries, including a marathon effort of 269 and 161 during India's maiden win at Birmingham in the second Test.
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