A few months after his U-19 World Cup heroics, three senior journalists sought his cellphone number, which he readily provided -- only, he gave three different, but similar, numbers to the three of them!
The first sighting of Shubman Gill, some dozen years ago -- slim and wiry, all sharp bones and skinny, shooting up as the adolescent hormones kicked in, with ears that stuck out and a voice that was breaking -- didn't portend absolute greatness. He seemed indistinguishable from the gaggle of young cricketers who trained at an academy near the cricket stadium at Mohali, most of whom burned with the desire of playing for India.
It would be, thus, incorrect to say that we of the media could then say that he would play for India, let alone captain India -- he was quiet and shy and didn't speak much, certainly not the leader type.
But there was a hidden Gill, too -- a boy who could be a child with his mates, with a wicked sense of fun and pranks and humour, as his teammates would relate.
"In front of the coaches, he's quiet, but with us, he's very different," Abhishek Sharma noted years ago. "They still think that he's very shareef (innocent)!"
As for the cricket, he had been pointed out as the one to watch out for by Punjab Cricket Association officials, especially after Karsan Ghavri, the former India pacer, fast-tracked him into the state Under-14 team when he was 10.
"I used to play Under-14s when I was ten, then Under-16s when I was 13-14," Gill noted when was first picked for India in early 2019.
Gill hogged the limelight right from his second year as a teenager. In December 2013, aged 14 and playing his first match in the under-16 Vijay Merchant Trophy, he made it large in Patiala with 205 out of Punjab's 451 against Haryana.
Then he got a 100 in the first innings in the final, out of Punjab's 262, but his team lost. The next season, 15 and now the captain, he scored big through the tournament, and led the team to the trophy with a second-innings century.
Success was heady, yet Gill's head didn't turn -- he remained quiet and shy, but the glint in his eye was sharper, the dimply smile more ready, and the runs and the attention created an aura about him. In mid-teenage, Gill was enjoying the attention, yet working as hard as ever.
His strokes were delightful -- the cracking cover drive, the short-arm pull, the upper cut -- and he played them with power and authority and beauty. By the time India won the Under-19 World Cup, in which he was the Player of the Tournament, he was the star of a team that included captain Prithvi Shaw and his Punjab mate Abhishek Sharma, and his hair had a blonde streak.
The new Gill was now more comfortable in speaking with reporters, more articulate, revealing a sharp mind that was flinty -- and impish. There's the story that a few months after his U-19 World Cup heroics, three senior journalists sought his cellphone number after the Deodhar Cup final, which he readily provided -- only, he gave three different, but similar, numbers to the three of them!
People chase heroes, and agents chase heroes and turn them into brands -- Gill became a brand.
On Test debut, in early 2021, his bat sported the logo of YouWeCan, the charity founded by Yuvraj Singh, who is also Gill's mentor and buddy. They bantered on X (then Twitter) about 'whose bat is that!'
After two Tests, the YWC logo suddenly disappeared -- its absence was noticed when he came out to bat in the first innings of the Brisbane Test, in which he scored a game-defining 91 in the second innings.
Yuvraj had been very vocal on Twitter about Gill's batting when the YWC logo was on his bat; but when Gill played his finest innings, the 91 in Brisbane on January 19, Yuvraj didn't go wild with delight on X -- he posted nothing on social media, in fact, and only congratulated the whole Indian team. Very possibly Yuvraj congratulated Gill personally, through a WhatsApp message, perhaps.
Stardom, like any product, follows the principle of demand and supply -- higher demand and low supply push up value. Gill became a star, and there likely was a rush of sponsors who wanted their logo on his bat. YouWeCan didn't return.
It's a fact of life, and Yuvraj would understand, for he knows that the world wants a piece of you when you're a star, and leaves you when your star is on the wane, only to crowd around the younger prospect.
Journalists know it well, too. The cricketers whose father or coach would importune them to publish an interview or a photograph or merely scores of their wards stop answering the phone when the said cricketers become stars.
This happened with Gill, too. And you can't blame him, for if he had 10 friends earlier, now he has a million! Reporters who have known Gill and his father Lakhwinder for over a decade, found that suddenly, the gates of his house in village Chak Khere Wala were not open to them.
It may seem unfair, but Gill now belongs not to Chak Khere Wala but to all of India and, after his amazing performance in England, perhaps the whole of the cricket world. How many phone calls can such a person answer?
His success in England, both as batsman and captain, was astonishing, revealing a very calm mind, and the ability to compartmentalise batting and leadership. His batting elicited the highest praise from the experts, and his run-scoring was quite Bradmanesque.
He played with his natural flair, and he would be grateful that pitches were mostly flat -- England have chosen to create batting beauties in the Bazball era, in order to make a success of their plan to bat fourth after winning the toss and then skip merrily to the biggest possible targets.
And though it seemed a few times during the series that he was letting the game simply drift away, Gill has grown greatly and rapidly in his debut series as captain.
Gill, typically termed cute by his female fans, is a hero for our times, tattooed and funny and multilingual, with a surging following on social media. A farmer's grandson, and son of a farmer who had to interrupt tending to his fields in order to nourish his son's career, Gill is both earthy and urbane.
His family took part in rallies during the farmers' protest against the three Union government bills four years ago, but Gill is likely to be less radical and more conventional, for the stakes are very high.
It always is thus when a person becomes a star and a brand. He eschews controversy, speaks with intelligence and clarity and wit, hangs around with Ed Sheeran, and then there's that dimply grin.
Shades of Tendulkar, but evidence from over a decade suggests that Gill would be a calmer, less intense leader, more a Dhoni or Rohit Sharma than a Kohli.
No one could have predicted this, too, a dozen years ago.