Image Credit- ICC
Shubman Gill retired hurt during the India-New Zealand
World Cup semi-final on Wednesday in Mumbai, partly due to the dengue that kept
him out of the tournament from the beginning.
When Gill left the pitch in the 23rd over of India’s
innings, he was batting on 79. He came back to bat in the last over, following
the removal of the fourth wicket, and fielded during New Zealand’s innings.
Since then, he has affirmed that he is healthy to play in the November 19 World
Cup final in Ahmedabad.
“It started with cramps and then I pulled my
hamstring a little bit,” Gill said at his post-match press conference.
“It was quite humid and just the after-effects of dengue.”
After missing India’s first two league games, Gill
made a comeback to the team and has since participated in all eight of their
games. Gill said that dengue had decreased his muscular mass, even though he
indicated it had not significantly affected his performance.
“I have honestly not really adjusted anything in
terms of my batting but because I have lost a bit of muscle mass, I think the
reserve that I used to have before the dengue has decreased a little bit […]
You do get cramps when you’re playing in humid conditions, but for me [it]
happens after a long period of time, not so soon,” he elaborated.
“But because I think I’ve lost a bit of muscle mass; the reserve has gone
down a bit.”
India’s total of 397 for 4 included centuries from
Virat Kohli and Shreyas Iyer; while cramps prevented Gill from having the
opportunity to score one himself, he was pleased to have contributed positively
to the semi-final victory.
“If I didn’t get cramp, maybe I would have scored
a hundred,” Gill, who scored an unbeaten 80 in 66 balls, said. “But I
think the total we were trying to reach, irrespective of whether I scored a
hundred or not, we reached there. We had a hope of scoring around 400, we had
expectations that by the 25th-30th over we should have scored these many runs,
and we did that, so it didn’t matter whether I made a century or not.”