Shubman Gill vs KL Rahul Stats: Test, ODI, T20I & IPL
By CricketTaken EditorialPublished Cricket in India9 min read
KL Rahul has scored 5,828 Indian Premier League runs at 45.53 across thirteen seasons and five franchises. Shubman Gill has 4,598 at 40.33 across nine seasons and two. That is the clearest measure of the difference between them: Rahul has been doing this for longer and has done it slightly better in the competition where both have the fullest record.
The international picture splits by format. Rahul leads in Tests, with 3,999 runs and eleven hundreds from 66 matches against Gill's 2,843 and ten from 40, though Gill's average of 42.43 is nearly seven higher than Rahul's 35.71. In Twenty20 internationals Rahul is ahead on almost every line. In one-day cricket Gill is ahead on almost every line, with 3,141 runs at 56.09 to Rahul's 3,283 at 49.74 from far fewer matches.
The one thing neither record shows is that Rahul has kept wicket for India in every format and Gill has not. A comparison of two top-order batters that ignores what one of them does with the gloves misses part of the selection case.
The four formats
| Format | Shubman Gill | KL Rahul |
|---|---|---|
| Tests | 40 matches, 2,843 runs at 42.43, 10 hundreds, HS 269 | 66 matches, 3,999 runs at 35.71, 11 hundreds, HS 199 |
| ODIs | 64 matches, 3,141 runs at 56.09, 8 hundreds, HS 208 | 93 matches, 3,283 runs at 49.74, 8 hundreds, HS 112* |
| T20Is | 35 matches, 846 runs at 28.20, 1 hundred, HS 126* | 69 matches, 2,149 runs at 36.42, 2 hundreds, HS 110* |
| IPL | 134 matches, 4,598 runs at 40.33, 5 hundreds, HS 129 | 160 matches, 5,828 runs at 45.53, 6 hundreds, HS 152* |
Both were active when this page was written, and Rahul's Test totals in particular have moved since the figures above were compiled — later in 2026 he passed 4,000 Test runs and a twelfth hundred. The table is a snapshot, not a career.
Test cricket
| Measure | Shubman Gill | KL Rahul |
|---|---|---|
| Matches | 40 | 66 |
| Innings | 73 | 117 |
| Runs | 2,843 | 3,999 |
| Average | 42.43 | 35.71 |
| Strike rate | 61.50 | 51.63 |
| Hundreds | 10 | 11 |
| Fifties | 8 | 19 |
| Highest score | 269 | 199 |
Rahul has 1,156 more runs from 44 more innings and one more hundred. Gill has the higher average by 6.72 and the higher strike rate by roughly ten.
The conversion figures are the interesting part. Gill has ten hundreds and eight fifties — more hundreds than fifties, which very few batters manage. Rahul has eleven hundreds and nineteen fifties, and his 199 at Chepauk against England in December 2016 is the closest an India opener has come to a double hundred without reaching one.
Rahul's Test career has been interrupted repeatedly, by form, by injury and by the selectors moving him between opening, the middle order and the wicketkeeping role. Gill's has been less disrupted but shorter. Neither career reads as a settled position held for a decade, which is what makes the averages harder to compare than the raw columns suggest.
One-day cricket
| Measure | Shubman Gill | KL Rahul |
|---|---|---|
| Matches | 64 | 93 |
| Innings | 64 | 86 |
| Runs | 3,141 | 3,283 |
| Not outs | 8 | 20 |
| Average | 56.09 | 49.74 |
| Strike rate | 99.05 | 91.02 |
| Hundreds | 8 | 8 |
| Fifties | 19 | 19 |
| Highest score | 208 | 112* |
Identical hundred and fifty counts, 142 runs apart in total, and Gill has done it in 22 fewer innings. His average is 6.35 higher and his strike rate eight higher.
Rahul's twenty not-outs from 86 innings are the giveaway to the difference in role. He has spent much of his one-day career batting at five or six, often keeping wicket, finishing innings rather than building them. Gill has opened throughout, which gives him more balls and a higher ceiling on any single innings — his 208 against New Zealand at Hyderabad in 2023 could not have been made from No. 5.
Both averages are strong by any standard. On the numbers as they stand Gill is the better one-day batter, and on the roles as India has used them the two are not doing the same job.
Twenty20 internationals
| Measure | Shubman Gill | KL Rahul |
|---|---|---|
| Matches | 35 | 69 |
| Runs | 846 | 2,149 |
| Average | 28.20 | 36.42 |
| Strike rate | 137.56 | 139.18 |
| Hundreds | 1 | 2 |
| Fifties | 3 | 20 |
| Sixes | 26 | 96 |
Rahul is ahead on every line except the marginal difference in strike rate. Twenty fifties from 68 innings is the most striking figure — a rate of conversion into starts that Gill has not approached in the format, where he has three from 37.
The caveat is that Rahul's Twenty20 international career is largely finished as a regular fixture and Gill's is not. India has moved between several openers in the format and Gill's 35 caps have come in bursts rather than as a run.
The Indian Premier League, season by season
| Season | Gill runs (SR) | Rahul runs (SR) |
|---|---|---|
| 2013 | — | 20 (125.0) |
| 2014 | — | 166 (101.2) |
| 2015 | — | 142 (112.7) |
| 2016 | — | 397 (146.5) |
| 2018 | 203 (146.0) | 659 (158.4) |
| 2019 | 296 (124.4) | 593 (135.4) |
| 2020 | 440 (118.0) | 670 (129.3) |
| 2021 | 478 (118.9) | 626 (138.8) |
| 2022 | 483 (132.3) | 616 (135.4) |
| 2023 | 890 (157.8) | 274 (113.2) |
| 2024 | 426 (147.4) | 520 (136.1) |
| 2025 | 650 (155.9) | 539 (149.7) |
| 2026 | 732 (163.0) | 593 (174.4) |
Rahul missed the 2017 season and Gill had not debuted, so neither has an entry that year.
Rahul's peak block runs from 2018 to 2022, five consecutive seasons of 593 or more with averages between 51 and 63. That is the most sustained run of scoring either man has produced. Gill's best years are 2023, 2025 and 2026, and his 890 in 2023 is the single highest season total between them.
The strike rates have converged from opposite directions. Rahul's ran between 101 and 158 in his early years and his 174.4 in 2026 is by some distance the highest of his career. Gill's climbed from 118 in his Kolkata years to 163 in 2026. Both have become faster batters in the same period, which says as much about the competition as about either of them.
| Career IPL | Gill | Rahul |
|---|---|---|
| Innings | 131 | 153 |
| Runs | 4,598 | 5,828 |
| Average | 40.33 | 45.53 |
| Strike rate | 142.09 | 139.16 |
| Hundreds | 5 | 6 |
| Fifties | 32 | 45 |
| Sixes | 152 | 239 |
| Highest score | 129 | 152* |
Rahul is ahead on runs, average, fifties, sixes and highest score. Gill is ahead on strike rate by three. Rahul's 152 not out is the larger innings, and his 239 sixes to Gill's 152 from 22 more innings is a bigger gap than the difference in games explains.
The IPL's most runs leaderboard places both totals, and the most sixes list Rahul's 239.
Where each case rests
Six things the tables do not state:
- Rahul has scored more runs than Gill in three of the four formats. Gill has the higher average in two of the four.
- Rahul has kept wicket for India in Tests, ODIs and Twenty20 internationals. Gill has not kept in any format, so the two are not competing for the same slot in a balanced side.
- Gill's ODI average of 56.09 is the highest figure either man holds in any format. Rahul's IPL average of 45.53 is the highest of his.
- Rahul has played for five IPL franchises and captained two of them. Gill has played for two and captained one.
- Neither has converted a Test double hundred into a habit — Gill has one, at 269, and Rahul's best is 199.
- Rahul's 45 IPL fifties to six hundreds is a conversion pattern almost the reverse of his Test record, where he has more hundreds than the fifty count would predict.
What the comparison is really about
For most of the period covered here the two were not rivals for a place. Rahul was the incumbent in the middle order and behind the stumps; Gill was the opener India was building around. The competition between them has been for a top-order slot in fifty-over cricket, and there the numbers favour Gill.
In Test cricket the case is more open than the averages suggest, because Rahul's has been depressed by long stretches opening in England, Australia and South Africa, where India's openers have historically averaged low. Gill's has been accumulated more often at home and in the middle order.
Related pages follow the same method. Shubman Gill against Yashasvi Jaiswal covers the other young opener of the same generation, and Rishabh Pant against KL Rahul takes the wicketkeeping half of Rahul's record seriously. The players index lists them all, the profiles for Shubman Gill and KL Rahul carry the biographies, and the cricket in India hub sets both careers in context.
Sources and method
Both players' totals in Tests, ODIs, T20Is and the IPL are taken from their profiles here as last revised, and the season-by-season IPL splits from the ball-by-ball archive of the competition through the 2026 final.
The Test row for KL Rahul is explicitly a snapshot. The figures given — 66 matches, 3,999 runs, eleven hundreds — were current when this site's dataset was compiled, and published records later in 2026 show him past 4,000 runs from 68 matches with a twelfth hundred after a century against Afghanistan in June. Rather than mix two vintages of data in one table, every column here comes from the same compilation, and readers should treat the Test line as accurate to that date rather than to today.
Two career totals in this page differ marginally between the two datasets the site holds — one gives Rahul 5,828 IPL runs from 153 innings and the other 5,815 from 149, the difference being how a small number of innings are attributed. The larger figure is used throughout for consistency and the discrepancy is noted here rather than hidden.
Comparisons of role — batting position, wicketkeeping duty, why one has 93 one-day caps and the other 64 — are descriptive and rest on the pattern of selection across their careers. No adjustment has been made for opposition, venue or conditions; the observation that India's openers have averaged low in England, Australia and South Africa is offered as context, not as a correction applied to any figure. All figures current as of 28 August 2026.