This is a Test Shubman Gill will remember for a long, long time. Paradoxically, this is also a game he would like to forget in a hurry.
The right-hander from Punjab faced the proverbial baptism by fire in his first outing as India’s newest Test captain. There was plenty to savour, including a hundred in his maiden stint in his new avatar. But there was also bitter disappointment as his side frittered numerous advantageous positions and contrived to lose a match that, with greater application and determination, they should have won comfortably.
Captaining any side, at any level, comes with its unique set of challenges; nothing beats captaining one’s country – one doesn’t have to discharge that responsibility to believe so. In India, it is said, captaincy of the national side is the second most demanding task because of the eyeballs and the scrutiny involved, and because everyone and their cousin has what they consider the most definitive opinion on the sport.
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Gill, the batter-captain, ticked most boxes. Before the match, he had made it clear that his job as skipper begins only when his team is in the field. He was true to his word when it was his turn to bat, immediately after lunch on day one at Headingley. Put in by Ben Stokes, Gill walked into a nice platform – 92 for two – even though those two wickets had fallen for the addition of just one run.
His record outside Asia hasn’t been the most encouraging in the last four and a half years, but watching him bat, no one would have suspected that. He was immaculate in defence, his timing subliminal, and his feet moved with absolute surety. Clearly, the long hours at nets were bearing fruit; Gill is among the hardest workers at practice, leaving nothing to chance and ensuring that he is at peace with where his game is at before he exits the training facility. His first Test knock at No. 4 must have been particularly satisfying because every leader worth his salt loves nothing more than setting an example to emulate so that they don’t have to ask of their charges what they themselves haven’t done.
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Gill’s bigger examination was always going to come on the park. With the bat, he could control his own destiny even though batting is a reactive exercise. On the field, he needed his bowlers to deliver, he needed the catchers to hold on to the chances, he needed the fielders to throw themselves wholeheartedly into saving runs and creating half-chances because more than any other discipline, poor fielding can only be a result of unforced errors. His fielders and catchers let him down; across the two English innings during their terrific five-wicket victory, India put down four straightforward catches and a half-chance that even more athletic bowlers than Jasprit Bumrah would have struggled to cling on to on their follow-through. Furthermore, there were misfields galore, which were promptly punished by an English side now adept at seizing key moments.
Shubman Gill left a lot to be desired on the field
How Gill would move his bowlers around, what fields he would set and how he would react to England’s aggressive batting template were serious talking points in the lead-up to the match. These are very, very early days and one Test is too short a dataset to arrive at any conclusion but there is no denying that Gill the fielding captain has plenty of work ahead of him.
There has been some criticism of Gill’s handling of Shardul Thakur’s bowling in the first innings – the ‘bowling all-rounder’ sent down only six out of 100.4 – but that has to be viewed against the control he required, and got, from Ravindra Jadeja’s left-arm spin when all others except Bumrah were being taken to the cleaners. His bowling changes, whilst a tad predictable, were generally faultless but he left much to be desired with his fields.
There was a distinct tendency to ball-chase, particularly in the first innings, as Gill tried to plug a hole after a shot had gone there. He was very precise and particular with where he wanted his fielders, which became almost obsessive given that he moved his pieces around, if only by an inch or three, almost every other ball. To his credit, he was open to inputs from the more experienced members before eventually taking the final call – after all, the buck does stop with the captain.
Gautam Gambhir, the head coach, seemed to like what he saw of his skipper. “He has everything it takes to be a successful captain,” Gambhir, who led the country sporadically in his time, observed. “But we have got to give him time, it’s still very early days. These are tough places to captain, it’s like putting someone in the deep sea.” How Gill negotiates the choppy waters after a rocky start will be watched with interest and anticipation.