'I hate to bring Virat Kohli as a comparison as Shubman Gill is a young captain, but he would not have put such a defensive field'
'I thought he followed the ball a lot. I thought he was reactive as opposed to proactive'
Shubman Gill’s Test captaincy debut couldn’t have started on a tougher note. Tasked with defending a mammoth 371-run target on Day 5 against an aggressive England side, the young skipper found his decisions—particularly his defensive field placements—under the scanner as India slumped to a five-wicket loss at Headingley.
While Gill's intent was to contain, former players believe he missed an opportunity to attack when it mattered most.
“Most people felt Shubman Gill went too defensive. But I think he was trying to trap England by cutting off boundaries, hoping the wickets would come eventually,” said former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar on JioHotstar.
Gill began the final day under cloudy skies with several boundary riders in place—an approach that didn’t sit well with many. Manjrekar felt that such a field was something former skipper Virat Kohli would never have set, especially at the start of a decisive day’s play.
“I hate to bring Virat Kohli as a comparison as Shubman Gill is a young captain, but he would not have put such a defensive field. That’s different from someone like Virat Kohli, who might say: We have enough runs, I’ll get you all out before Tea. Whether he would have gotten wickets with an attacking field is not guaranteed but he would have been at it,” Manjrekar pointed out.
He did, however, acknowledge that Gill was working with a far less experienced bowling unit than Kohli once had at his disposal.
“Gill doesn’t have the same seam attack as England—though they don’t have Bumrah, the English team has more all-round options. Even with Jadeja, I felt India should’ve started with a standard field rather than pre-empting reverse sweeps. You want to start with attacking intent—even if only for a few overs—before going defensive. That said, I don’t want to be overly critical of Shubman. He’s a new captain, and we should be understanding of that.”
Former England skipper Nasser Hussain echoed the criticism during his appearance on Sky Cricket. He agreed with Ravi Shastri’s on-air analysis and questioned Gill’s lack of command in the field, contrasting it sharply with Kohli’s authoritative presence.
“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. 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,” Hussain remarked.
As India look to bounce back in the five-match series, Gill’s leadership—though still in its infancy—will remain under the microscope, especially with experienced voices like Pant and Rahul in the XI, and Virat Kohli’s legacy looming large.
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