Shubman Gill, India’s Test captain, claimed that the squad is willing to sacrifice batting depth in order to add more bowlers to the lineup, even if it meant fielding only six specialist hitters and four tailenders. The opening Test of India’s five-match Test series against England is due to start at Headingley on Friday.
In contrast to India’s recent foreign tour of Australia, where the squad chose a deeper batting lineup that included two all-rounders, Washington Sundar and Nitish Kumar Reddy, in addition to the core batting unit, the recently chosen captain emphasized a change in tactics.
“Yes, definitely. You can’t win a Test match without taking 20 wickets no matter how many runs you score. So that has been one of our key discussion points, you know, how are we going to take 20 wickets and there might be a case where we would only be going with six batters and we would see a bowling all-rounder and three to four fast bowlers or proper bowlers,” Gill said as quoted by Cricbuzz.
Shubman Gill admitted that the team has been influenced by their seniors’ tactics from the previous ten years on how to win games under any circumstances. He also emphasized how important it will be to keep a healthy team atmosphere for both the forthcoming Test series and a successful World Test Championship (WTC) cycle.
“The blueprint that we got from our seniors in the last 5-10 years, we can win anywhere and we will try to follow that same confidence and blueprint. And as I said, if your team has a very good environment, players feel very secure and confident and they know what their role is. So we want to create that environment in the team. And if we succeed in creating that environment, I think our Test series and the WTC cycle will be very successful,” Gill added.
Gill maintained that instead than obsessing on his captaincy duties, he wants to concentrate mostly on his role as a batter. He went on to say that this strategy will ease the pressure and let him focus on controlling the opponent for the duration of the series.
“After Virat bhai retired, me and GG bhai [Gambhir] had a discussion about it and we were both clear that he wanted me to be at number four and I was also clear that I also wanted to be at that number.”
Shubman Gill
“Honestly, when I want to go out there and bat, I just want to play as a batsman and not really want to think that I’m the captain of the game because I think that sometimes puts too much pressure on me. Whenever I’m going out there, I want to play as a batsman and want to dominate the opposition and be the best batsman in the series. And that’s what I’m trying to look at.”
Shubman Gill
