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Pakistan’s Abrar Ahmed bowled Shubman Gill with a stunning carrom ball during the 2025 Champions Trophy, shocking Indian fans and Virat Kohli. Watch the video here.
Brilliant reactions all around on Shubman Gill’s wicket. (PC: X)
Pakistan leg-spinner Abrar Ahmed clean bowled Shubman Gill with a jaffa, sending the Indian opener, his batting partner Virat Kohli, and a huge section of Indian fans to shock during the 2025 Champions Trophy clash in Dubai. Gill was batting brilliantly for 46 (52) and his wicket came completely against the run of play.
It happened in the 18th over. Abrar set up Gill with a googly on the second ball and followed it up with a stunning carrom ball, that pitched on middle and leg and took substantial turn and bounce to knock over the top of his off-stump. Gill, who could have perhaps covered the turn by playing it on the front foot, had his eyes widened after the delivery. Kohli at the non-striker’s end had the same reaction.
Meanwhile, Abrar crossed his hands and gave Gill a send-off with his eyes. Watch the video here:
Gill’s wicket would come as a massive blow to India. He has been the Men in Blue’s best batter in ODIs since 2023 and was coming off a match-winning, unbeaten century against Bangladesh.
Even here, soon after Shaheen Shah Afridi got Rohit Sharma bowled with a beautiful yorker, Gill took the left-arm pacer on with a flurry of boundaries to swing the momentum back into India’s favor.
Now, it was on Kohli to take India home in the 242-run chase. At the time of this piece going into publishing, Kohli was at 45 (56), looking good for at least a half-century.
Earlier in the innings, he crossed 14,000 ODI runs, becoming the fastest to do so.
On commentary, his former batting coach at the Indian team, Sanjay Bangar, who also worked with him before the Champions Trophy, analyzed that Kohli was batting better because he was playing pacers and spinners under his eye-line. Bangar said Kohli was keeping his head still and was also speaking with himself to focus on every delivery.
