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A peek into where India Test captain Shubman Gill's journey began
CHENNAI: Chak Khere Wala, close to the India-Pakistan border, is not even a speck on the map of India. It would have remained just another nondescript village of India's vast hinterland if not for one individual – Shubman Gill. When the newly-anointed India captain walks in the India blazer to toss the coin against England in the first Test at Leeds on Friday (June 20), the village would enter into the folklore of Indian cricket.
This is where Gill's cricketing journey began as a three-year-old with a wooden bat carved out of a tree trunk made by his grandfather. Gill's grandparents – Sardar Didar Singh Gill and Gurmail – still live in the house surrounded by acres of farmland. The small stretch of concrete that was built to make Gill bat and the kitchen walls still stand as a testimony to his early toil as a batter.
Didar, who is nearing 90, did not want to speak. He, however, was happy and proud to show around the house and Gills' mementos and plaques. Most of the trophies have been shifted to Mohali but the ones that remained were the 2018 U19 World Cup to the recent Champions Trophy.
