Former India cricketer and coach Ravi Shastri feels rising star Shubman Gill, who is playing for Gujarat Titans in IPL 2023, can break Virat Kohli's historic record for most runs in a season.
Notably, former India and Royal Challengers Bangalore captain Kohli holds the record for scoring the highest runs in IPL in one season. He had scored 973 runs for RCB across 16 matches in IPL 2016.
"He has to be an opening batsman, because only then will he get many opportunities to score runs. I feel it is Subhman Gill because he is in good form and also because he plays top of the order. So he will get a good number of opportunities to score runs. The pitches are good, so if he can score 80-100 runs consecutively in two or three innings, then at that point of time only he will already have 300-400 runs," Shastri told Star Sports, the official TV broadcasters of IPL 2023.
"According to me, it is very difficult to break the record, because 900 plus runs is huge but one thing is opening batsmen will get two extra matches and two extra innings, so opening batsmen can only break this record if it is possible," he added.
For Shastri, the youngsters Tilak Varma and Sai Sudharsan have been the standout performers so far in the IPL 2023 for him,
"If we look at what's happened till now, then the two left-handers, Tilak Varma and Sudharshan, one is 20 years old, the other is 21, they have been a lot of fun to watch. Because they seem to have a future, their temperament and maturity which we can see shows the potential they have to be good players," he said.
Meanwhile, former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan also gave his opinion on who has impressed him the most in the IPL 2023.
"One is definitely Tilak Varma, he has impressed us a lot. He batted well last year and has performed this year as well. Even his attitude is very good. He looks like he can be a leader in the future. And the second is Jurel, the way Jurel has batted from his first innings, I couldn't even imagine the quality of his shots under pressure. So that is one boy who has impressed, even though it's still in the early stages, but these are promising signs" said Irfan.
