Former England skipper Nasser Hussain has weighed in on Shubman Gill’s debut as India’s Test captain, stating that the young leader lacked the on-field presence his predecessors—Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma—commanded.
“I thought I saw someone just finding his way, honestly. You’ve got to be very careful in the first Test match, the people he’s taken over from, Kohli, and then Rohit Sharma. I thought he didn’t quite have that on-field aura as the names I mentioned there. You look down on those two previous names, and you immediately see who was in charge of India,” he said on Sky Sports.
Hussain felt that Gill appeared to be still settling into the leadership role and observed that the team at times seemed to be operating through a “captaincy by committee” approach.
“I looked down from the press box, the commentary position, there were a lot of captains; it was a bit captaincy by committee, which can happen in your early days as a leader because you’re still senior players like Rishabh Pant and KL Rahul want to try and help you out as much as possible. I thought he followed the ball a lot. I thought he was reactive as opposed to proactive,” he added.
“I was surprised that not one of the senior players or captains went to Jadeja” – Hussain
One moment that particularly stood out to Hussain was the lack of communication with Ravindra Jadeja on the final day of the Headingley Test. Despite visible rough patches on the pitch that could have aided spin, Jadeja struggled, finishing with just one wicket for 104 runs.
“A word with Jadeja, maybe as a young captain, to go to such an experienced spinner, and go, you do know the rough is out there. Ravi Shastri and Mark Butcher are up there, going, show us where that ball is pitching, and it was pitching nowhere near the rough. Ravi was saying, a bit slow, a bit wide, bowl in the rough. I was surprised that not one of the senior players or captains went to Jadeja and said, Can we go a little bit wider. But Ravi’s right, they lost the game for two things that he couldn’t control,” Hussain explained.
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