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Newly-appointed India captain Shubman Gill participated in the pre-match press-conference that was held on Thursday ahead of the first Test of the five-match series against England at Headingley. It was there that the 25-year-old revealed what made him choose the number four position in India's batting order ahead of the Test series against England. Notably, it was Virat Kohli who used to bat at that position in Tests.
Gill stated that after Kohli announced his retirement from red-ball cricket, he had a chat with head coach Gautam Gambhir, following which he came to the decision of taking the number four spot.
“Captaining the country is the biggest honour anyone can get. After Virat bhai retired, me and GG bhai had a discussion about me batting at that number," Gill said at the pre-match press-conference.
Gill had met with both Virat and Rohit during IPL 2025
Gill further revealed that during the recently-concluded season of IPL, he had met with both Virat and Rohit Sharma and had asked them about their experiences of playing Test cricket in England.
"I met both Virat Kohli & Rohit Sharma in the IPL - they shared their experiences of England & I spoke to them during the IPL," Gill added.
In an earlier press-conference, India vice-captain Rishabh Pant had revealed that Gill will be batting on the fourth spot while he himself will be batting on the fifth position in the series against England.
“There is still discussion going on who will bat at No 3. Shubham will go in at No 4 and I will bat at 5. I think me and Shubman have a really good camaraderie off the field. If you're good friends off the field, it eventually comes on the field as well. That is something I've always believed. Me and him, we gel really well together. We keep on having conversations and the kind of comfort zone we have with each other, I think that is really going to be special for us," Pant said during a press-conference.
The Test series between India and England which will commence from June 20, will mark the commencement of the new World Test Championship (WTC) cycle, so it was undoubtedly be highly important for both the teams. With India having not recorded a Test series triumph on English soil since 2007, Gill & Co. will be aiming to finally snap their unbeaten streak.
India squad for England Tests: Shubman Gill (c), Rishabh Pant (wk), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Nitish Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammad Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana.
England's playing XI for first Test against India: Ben Stokes (C), Zak Crawley, Ben Duckett, Ollie Pope, Joe Root, Harry Brook, Jamie Smith (WK), Chris Woakes, Brydon Carse, Josh Tongue, Shoaib Bashir.
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