The Shubman Gill chapter in India’s Test cricket history begins full of promise, but also full of pitfalls. Captaincy is a crown, alright, but one that can quickly grow prickly thorns. Not even Sachin Tendulkar, MS Dhoni and Virat Kohli – India’s three biggest cricketing icons – escaped harsh criticism when they captained the Test team.
Ironically, too, in the last Test India played, Rohit Sharma stood himself down so that Gill could come back into the XI. Now that has happened on a more permanent basis.
Gill will need to be at his unflappable, calm best to ride the inevitable highs and surf through the equally inevitable lows. His initiation is not easy. It would have been much easier to bed in as captain with a home series against a low-ranked opponent. Instead, Gill has to lead against England away, where the media will pose almost as much of a challenge off the field as the players will on it.
The good thing is, the selectors feel they have identified the man for the long haul in Gill. As chief selector Ajit Agarkar said, “We don’t pick captains for one tour or two tours. We want to try and invest in something that’s going to help us going forward.
“Over the last year or so, we’ve looked at Shubman at various times… We take a feedback from the dressing room as well. It always is a high pressure job, but we’re hopeful that we’ve picked the right guy. I think he is a terrific player, and our best wishes to him.”
So Gill has been installed with a long-term view in mind, and he’ll have the rope to shape the Test team the way he sees fit.
The England squad selection
The selectors have named a jumbo squad of 18 players. This is already remarkable, but doubly so because there will be an India A tour running too, from which it will be possible to draw players should the need arise. In spite of that, the selectors have felt that a bigger squad strength is desirable.
What the squad size does is give the captain and coach options.
They have eight batters (including keepers): Gill himself, vice-captain Rishabh Pant, Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Karun Nair, Dhruv Jurel and Abhimanyu Easwaran.
There are three allrounders: Ravindra Jadeja, Nitish Kumar Reddy and Washington Sundar.
And seven bowlers, in: Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Arshdeep Singh, Shardul Thakur and Kuldeep Yadav.
Of the above, if all are fit, the only automatic selections in the XI are Gill, Pant, Jaiswal, Rahul, Bumrah and Siraj you’d think. Beyond that, it will be about form, team balance and conditions. The good thing is, there’s enough in the squad to make an XI designed to whatever scenario the team feels best.
But even in an 18-man squad, some omissions have caused raised eyebrows. Perhaps the most unfortunate is Sarfaraz Khan, who has gone on a fitness mission and has been discarded without getting a chance to prove himself. India might have thought long and hard about Mohammed Shami too, but he still seems brittle and is nowhere near the bowler he was two seasons ago – at least not yet. Arshdeep over Harshit Rana is an interesting call, but you can’t fault the thinking of wanting a potent left-arm seamer in England. Now it is upto Arshdeep to show that he shouldn’t be pigeon-holed as just a white-ball specialist.
The new era
There’s a collective gap of 296 Test caps gone missing with the retirements of Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma and R Ashwin. That sort of experience cannot be replaced overnight, even if players of the new generation grow up imbibing a lot more.
On the other hand, if you are charting a new course, there’s no better time to do it. Not that either of Kohli, Rohit or Ashwin were ever shy of walking down different paths – but their journeys have come to a natural end. While it was there, it gave India it’s greatest ever Test team and unprecedented dominance at home. But, as Agarkar said, their absence is an opportunity for someone else.
“Their performances over the years have shown in the amount of games that they’ve won for India,” Agarkar said. “It’s someone else’s chance now. And but there’s no there’s no doubt we’ll miss them.
“It’s always difficult. One way of looking at it is: it’s an opportunity for someone else. They’ve left a legacy behind.”
Now it’s time for Gill, Pant and company to define their own era.