A shocking stat about Shubman Gill's maiden T20I century that the India batter smashed against New Zealand in Ahmedabad this week has emerged online.

Though Shubman Gill broke several records en route to his masterful unbeaten 126-run-knock off 63 deliveries, one particular feat stood out among them.

According to stats available on Twitter, With India's 168-run triumph over New Zealand, Shubman Gill became the first player to outscore the opposition by 50+ runs in a T20I match (full members).

Among other milestones, at 23 years and 146 days, Shubman Gill is the youngest men's player to score hundreds in all three forms of cricket.

He also joined a select band of Indian players who have made hundreds across all formats. Before him, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Suresh Raina, and KL Rahul were the only Indians to reach the milestone.

Moreover, Gill is the youngest Indian batter to hit a T20I hundred, going past Suresh Raina’s previous mark, who achieved the landmark in 23 years and 156 days.

If this wasn’t enough, Shubman Gill added another feather to his cap as he leapfrogged Virat Kohli to have the highest score by an Indian in T20Is. The former India captain scored an excellent 122 off 61 balls against Afghanistan in the Asia Cup in September last year.

The youngster was positive from the outset as he cracked boundaries early in his innings before clobbering Lockie Ferguson for 11 runs in an over.

Afterward, Shubman Gill went berserk as he began dealing in boundaries and sixes, but his all-out assault on the New Zealand bowlers only came after he completed his half-century. Later, Rahul Tripathi and Suryakumar Yadav perished after scoring 44 off 22 and 24 off 13 balls, leaving Gill to go ballistic in his attack.

Gill struck back-to-back sixes against Benjamin Lister before smashing two more maximums against Blair Tickner to cruise into the 90s. He brought up his maiden T20I century with a powerful cover drive off Lockie Ferguson and collected another 17 runs in the 19th over to take India past the 200-mark. The Men in Blue eventually finished with a mammoth total of 234/4.

Chasing a massive score, New Zealand never looked threatening during the run chase as they lost their openers in the first two overs and half their side inside the initial powerplay. Later, Hardik Pandya and his boys bowled them out for 66, registering their biggest victory in T20Is by a massive margin of 168 runs.

With Gill in prime form, former India batter Mohammed Kaif urged the Indian team management, including skipper Rohit Sharma and head coach Rahul Dravid to slot him in the middle-order against Australia in the Test series that starts in Nagpur next week.

Notably, Shubman Gill scored his first Test hundred against Bangladesh in December. But he only got his chance after Rohit Sharma got injured.

With the India captain back in the squad after recovering from a finger injury, there's no place at the top of the order with KL Rahul being Rohit Sharma's preferred opening partner.

Keeping all these things in mind, Mohammed Kaif has called for Shubman Gill's inclusion in the side purely as a middle-order batter.

“Gill might get a place at No. 5 or No. 6. He will definitely play. (Cheteshwar) Pujara will be at No. 3 and (Virat) Kohli is at No. 4. (Shreyas) Iyer is not yet fit. So there is a place at No. 5 or No. 6 where he can be fit. He scored his first Test century recently in Bangladesh. In the last one to one-and-a-half months, he scored a century in a Test match, scored a double century and after that his bat has not stopped,” Mohammed Kaif told Star Sports.

“He (Gill) is the sort of player you would want to see playing in the XI. So he will get a place somewhere or the other. He is a class batter and has form with him. There is simplicity in his batting,” he added.

Meanwhile, Shubman Gill's ex-captain at Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), Dinesh Karthik, said that the former's elevation as an opener seems to have done wonders to his confidence, and he's now reaping its benefits.

“I have seen him in close quarters and there is something special about him. The first thing I observe is temperament. That was there in abundance. At KKR when I was captain, we sent him at No.6 and 7. Those are hard spots to play. Even now you can see a Deepak Hooda coming and (struggling), it's not easy. He went in and did that job with aplomb. He would take the team through,” Dinesh Karthik said on Cricbuzz.

“He was craving for an opening position. He came and told me that ‘DK bhai I want to open. Please give me this opportunity'. We were also not sure at that stage whether we want to continue with (Sunil) Naraine at the top of the order. He wasn't giving as much as we thought. He never looked back after that,” the veteran India batter stated.

“With Shubman you are not going to get inconsistency. At the base he has got a very solid technique. He can always fall back on that. The tempo with which he starts is simple in most matches but his beauty comes out in games like these when he has made a score, he is happy with where he is. What he did wrong was that he was just pulling instinctively and that is exactly what he changed. If you watch closely, before he reached his first 50 (during his knock on Wednesday against New Zealand) he played a lot of pull shots but everything was on the ground and that was a conscious effort. They were all singles, at maximum two. That is what batsmanship is all about,” Dinesh Karthik summed up.