Shubman Gill - cricket's next big brand

Bengaluru: Consider this. Just three days after the Asia Cup, where the Suryakumar Yadav-led side has more than a reasonable chance of making the final, India will engage themselves in a two-Test series against a visiting West Indies team. Given how formidable India’s T20 side has been for a while, it wouldn’t have missed the services of Shubman Gill who will have to lead the Test side with little turn-over time. What was the pressing need to include the 25-year-old in the UAE-bound squad? Whatever happened to workload management!

Not only the right-hander was handed a berth, but was elevated as the vice-captain as well. Gill was kept out of the T20 side for almost two years to ensure his focus and energies on Test cricket aren’t diluted. What exigency did the selectors see now to ink in Gill? 

The answer is more layered and complex, and many factors seem to be at play here. Did he deserve a place in the squad? Hundred per cent. Was his appointment as the vice-captain backed by sound logic? Given his age, his standing as a T20 batter and India’s aversion to having multiple captains for different formats, it made perfect sense in the long term. The issue, however, is how prudent is it to rush him into Tests, where he is not only your main batter but captain too?       

In the age of social media, transforming top athletes into influencers to leverage popularity among their fan-base has become an essential exercise for brands and broadcasters. Virat Kohli is a prime example of this. His gun batting, carefully-curated aggressive on-field image and undisputed standing as the leader of the Indian team made him the most marketable cricketer in the world. Over the years, he became a brand himself. With the 36-year-old’s international career all but over, cricket needs another face that ensures eye-balls for broadcasters and bums on seats in stadiums.

Gill appears the most plausible personality to replace Kohli. He is young, good looking, a future batting great and has potential to lead India for a long time to come across all three formats. A perfect cocktail to make him darling of brands. So, with all things being equal, there will be no effort spared to make him part of every major international event. 

“In the world of cricket, you always have a six-year cycle... You have a rising star and a setting star,” Harish Bojoor, a Bengaluru-based business & brand-strategy specialist, tells DHoS. “So, for every setting star, you need a rising star. So, if theoretically, let’s say (MS) Dhoni is a setting star, then you need a replacement for Dhoni. And if Kohli is a setting star, you need a replacement for him. So, Gill is aspiring to replace and his positioning seems to be very squarely aimed at the position occupied by Kohli.

“You know, the media... Particularly television cameras and a little bit of print camera, they all follow the eyeballs. So, the important thing is the game of the cricketer is the most important. Suddenly, three matches back to back, you see Gill doing a fantastic job. You tend to pitch your bets on him. And that’s exactly what the media does, place the bets on this rising star and aim to capitalise on the eyeballs that go to the star onto the media. It’s an umbilical effort. It is some symbiotic effort of both media and the persona. The persona needs the media and the media needs the persona. So, this symbiotic relationship is what spurs the entire movement.” 

By anointing Gill as the “Prince”, the legitimate heir to the throne occupied by the “King” (Kohli), various media platforms had already done the necessary ground work. But, Bijoor notes, brands place their bets on a winning horse. They don’t blindly pick a player or a celebrity and promote him or her.   

“Very few of these efforts (turning a player into brand) can be forced because today media organisations are very, very tight. And they have their own way of keeping a track of who’s promoting who. And I’ve known people in the media being told that you’re pushing the star too much. And sometimes the needle of suspicion is pointed to that particular media person. So, it can’t happen now. Possibly in the old days it could have happened, but I’ve not been in industry during those days. But today it can’t happen. Water finds its own level. And integrity finds its own level.” 

Bijoor gives the example of former pacer S Sreesanth of a failed effort.

“Sreesanth, at a point of time, was boosted up to a particular level and then came his fall. And post his fall, there were attempts to kind of do something (to lift his image), but they didn’t click.”

With many celebrities, including a few cricketers, in his roster, Bijoor senses a touch of impurity in today’s social-media driven branding exercise. He believes the passion displayed towards cricketers feels more engineered than spontaneous.

“As a kid, maybe a nine or 10-year old, I used to look up to be a cricket captain called Bishan Singh Bedi,” he says. “And Bedi was promoted like nobody’s business by the people themselves, by the media. People used to be much more passionate about stars for a different reason. It wasn’t for money or the glamour, but for pure cricket. Now, that has changed. See, Bedi was respected for whatever he did with the ball. And when he was dropped from the team, people used to protest -- no Bedi, no Test. That is my first memory of a 10-year-old kid who used to love cricket. 

“That was passion. And that was not prompted. But today pure passion has become impure. Today, it is an engineered passion by social media in a big way. You see social media efforts across Insta, across any of the other handles that you see. The idea is to really try and create hangama (make-believe situation) and give wings and tails to it. This happens across categories. In the old days, it used to be complete consumer love translating into brand persona. Today, it is the other way round. The brand persona engineers the persona for himself or herself. And social media creates that aura. And there’s a certain degree of hollowness in it.”

Gill’s rise is undeniable, and his potential seems limitless. But carrying the weight of being India’s captain, premier batter and next big brand is no small task. Kohli bore that triple burden for years with unflinching focus and dedication. If Gill, who has shown his head is firmly on his shoulders, can keep his attention on performance, he has every chance to follow a similar path.

Shubman Gill.