Shubman Gill wants to be in charge. Named India’s Test captain in May, the 26-year-old has had mixed results. Gill couldn’t have had a tougher test to begin his tenure. The England tour was supposed to challenge him as a batter and captain. Gill passed that exam with flying colours.
Gill had an easy start at home. A 2-match Test series against the West Indies was going to launch him. He earned his first series win as Test captain. Gill was expected to dominate against South Africa, who were battle-ready after playing in Pakistan. But things didn’t go well.
Shubman Gill takes charge as Test captain
Gill got injured, and India went on to lose 0-2. He captained in just one of the eight innings, but the loss belongs to him. It’s his team now, and Gill wants to take charge. Earlier in the week, it was reported that he’s asked the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to organise 15-day red-ball camps before every home Test series.
This was going to be Gill’s way of taking Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma’s Test legacy forward. Considering how white-ball cricket, especially T20Is, has taken priority, he wants more time to prepare for red-ball cricket. Not just to excel at home but away. Gill has confirmed having the conversation with BCCI, and we’ll see changes going forward.
“One of the suggestions that I was very keen on is, if you would see in the last two Test series that we played, we didn’t have that much time to prepare. It’s not easy playing in India and playing another match in a different country on the fourth day, especially when you are travelling on long tours,” Gill told reporters in Vadodara.
He highlighted how Team India had just 3 days to prepare for the West Indies series and 5 days for the South Africa series. Changing formats isn’t easy; changing your technique and form on a week-to-week basis isn’t a simple task. But by holding training camps before every Test series, players can adjust.
“Even if we would have won the series against South Africa, it still wouldn’t have made that much of a difference, because we know we need to prepare well to be able to win Test matches all over the world. Preparation for me is really big, and I didn’t think that we had that much time to prepare when we came back from Australia, or even after the Asia Cup when we played the West Indies series.
It’s important to at least have some bit of preparation, especially when changing from the white-ball format to the red-ball. I think we’ll take some action and we’ll keep it in mind to be able to prepare well before the start of any red-ball series,” he added.
Cricket
Pakistan offers to host Bangladesh's T20 World Cup matches amid standoff with India, ICC
