Shubman Gill vs Rishabh Pant – Who performed better in 2024?

Shubman Gill and Rishabh Pant have been two of the best players of the Indian team to have debuted after 2015. They had success at the Under-19 level and were fast-tracked into the senior team based on their performances in the IPL and domestic cricket. Pant was at his absolute best till 2022, the year in which he suffered a tragic accident, which ruled him out of action for about 15 months.

Pant returned to action in March 2024 during the IPL with the Delhi Capitals. In the same year, Shubman Gill became the captain for the first time, as he led the Gujarat Titans. The year happened to be Gill's best in Tests, which also helped him get the Indian captaincy. It is worth comparing how the duo fared in 2024 across formats at the highest level.

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Shubman Gill vs Rishabh Pant in 2024

Test Cricket

Gill batted from the start of the year in 2024 in the series against England. He was demoted from opening the innings to number 3, which helped him deliver his greatest year as a Test batter. Gill was a part of the series against England, Bangladesh, and New Zealand at home. He also played away from home against Australia towards the end of the year.

On the other hand, Pant was not a part of the series against England, as he was still recovering from his injury. He made his return to the Test side in the series against Bangladesh and played for the rest of the year. Unlike Gill, Pant had to keep wickets as well, an additional responsibility, which makes his comparison with Gill not ideal in the longest format of the game.

One Day Internationals

India played just one ODI series in 2024. It was a poor series for India, as they were swept 0-3 by Sri Lanka. Gill played all 3 matches in the series and found it hard to score runs. In 3 innings, the right-handed batter scored 57 runs with the best score of 35. Given the limited number of matches, it might not be ideal to compare their performance in ODIs.

Pant played just one match in the series against Sri Lanka. It's the only ODI he has played since 2022. The Southpaw scored 6 runs and did not play in the two other matches in the series. Pant struggled to get going with the bat, as he played in the slightly longer format for the first time in 2 years.

T20I Cricket

Both Gill and Pant played enough T20Is in 2024. While the latter was a part of the T20 World Cup 2024 following his good performance in the IPL 2024, the former played only bilateral series in the year, and sadly missed out on the T20 World Cup. Neither of them had a standout year with the bat in the shorter format.

While Gill scored 266 runs in 8 innings at an average of 38.00 and a strike rate of 133.00, Pant scored 222 runs in 10 innings at an average of 17.75 and a strike rate of 131.36. Pant played a majority of his matches in the T20 World Cup, where the surfaces were hard to bat on. Hence, it might not be ideal to compare their performances.

Indian Premier League

Both Gill and Pant had a good outing in the Indian Premier League in 2024. Gill was named the skipper of GT before the 2024 season, which was their first season of not qualifying for the Playoffs. Gill had some tough surfaces to bat on in Ahmedabad, unlike some other surfaces in the IPL 2024, which were as flat as they could get.

Pant had the fortune of batting mostly on good surfaces in Delhi and Vishakhapatnam. Purely going by raw stats, Pant has better numbers, despite batting in the middle order. However, a comparison between a top-order batter and a middle-order batter, who also keeps wickets, is never ideal.