RP Singh, recently appointed as a national senior selection committee member, recalled when former India captain and coach Rahul Dravid had predicted that Shubman Gill would become the ‘prominent’ Indian captain.
The fact that Rahul Dravid had told RP Singh this around 2021, when Gill was not even part of the Indian cricket team in any of the formats, makes it even more incredible.
“Just before he (Dravid) became the coach, we were having a conversation. When you sit down with a senior player, one does get talking. I asked him ‘We have so many captains in our team, who do you think will be the prominent captain of the Indian team?’. We had many captains, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya. he said ‘Shubman Gill’,” RP Singh
had recalled on Sony Sports back in July of this year, when Gill had made history by smashing a double hundred in the second Test against England.
When asked when he had this conversation with Dravid, RP guesstimated the time frame to be around 2021.
RP Singh continued, “‘He isn’t playing any of the three formats.’ I told Dravid. He replied, ‘Leave that, he has a lot of potential. If not today, then tomorrow, nobody will be able to stop him. He will be the Indian captain and will serve his position well’. Dravid had said this when he was not playing any of the formats.”
Gill was part of India’s Under-19 World Cup-winning team in 2018 under Dravid.
RP Singh shares how Rahul Dravid had seen a captain in Shubman long before the world did 🙌 #SonySportsNetwork #GroundTumharaJeetHamari #ENGvIND #NayaIndia #DhaakadIndia #TeamIndia #ExtraaaInnings pic.twitter.com/bH2DdPbJ9E
— Sony Sports Network (@SonySportsNetwk) July 4, 2025
Gill To Be India’s All-Format Captain?
Recently, Shubman Gill replaced Rohit Sharma as the ODI captain for India’s tour of Australia. The promotion marks the end of Hitman’s successful four-year tenure, during which he led India to the 2023 ODI World Cup final and won the 2025 Champions Trophy, ending a 12-year ICC tournament drought.
Earlier this year, Shubman Gill was appointed as India’s Test captain and is emerging as a potential leader across all formats for the national side. He succeeded Rohit Sharma in the red-ball format after the star opener announced his retirement from Test cricket midway through the Indian Premier League (IPL) season. In his first major assignment, Gill guided India to a hard-fought 2-2 draw in the five-Test series for the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy.
More recently, Gill served as Suryakumar Yadav’s deputy during the Asia Cup, with many predicting that Gill would eventually take over from SKY to be India’s all-format captain.
