The stage is set, the Indian nation expects, and the pressure is on India to deliver one of the most coveted trophies in the world of sport, the ICC Cricket World Cup. For 24-year-old Shubman Gill, there is no bigger platform on which to lay down his marker as the future of Indian cricket after recovering from dengue, having missed the first two matches against Australia and Afghanistan.
Unlike England where cricket is secondary to football in terms of interest and profile, in India cricket is paramount. The top cricketers can have social media followers in the hundreds of millions – for example, Virat Kohli has 260m followers on Instagram – and their faces adorn billboards while featuring in TV adverts is also a part of the status.
