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Head of the selection committee Ajit Agarkar on Saturday, announced India's 18-member squad that will be touring England next month for the highly important five-match Test series. One of the most significant changes that took place in the team was Shubman Gill getting appointed as the Men in Blue's new skipper in the longest format.
Manoj Tiwary questioned Shubman Gill's place in the playing XI
However, many experts weren't satisfied with the 25-year-old being chosen as Rohit Sharma's successor and former India cricketer Manoj Tiwary even went on to question Gill's place in the playing XI for the upcoming series.
“He was the second-best option. But how can someone who doesn't even fit in the Playing XI be made captain? So I feel the logic here was that they looked at who the second-best option was, and that was Gill, and that is how it happened,” Tiwary said on Cricbuzz.
Alongside Tiwary on the panel was legendary India batter Virender Sehwag, who stated that the selectors should have handed leadership duties to Jasprit Bumrah for the England series. He further said that Rishabh Pant is also a better option than Gill when it comes to Test captaincy.
“For a series, Bumrah is okay. But as a long-term option, you need to ask if India play 10 Tests in a year, will he be able to play all those matches? Or, how many matches can he play? That is a major factor in picking a captain. So that I feel was the right decision, because they felt they could not put that pressure and load on Bumrah. Tiwary said Gill is the second-best, but I feel that is Rishabh Pant, and Gill is the third-best,” Sehwag said.
The batting great also showered praise on Pant, stating that the wicketkeeper-batter is the only player aside from Virat Kohli, who has made Test cricket intriguing for the modern viewers and spectators.
“What Pant did for Test cricket, no other player has done. After Virat Kohli, if there is one player who has compelled fans into watching Test cricket, it's Pant. But because he had that accident, got injured and then came back, he did not have that much of an impact, and hence he was made the vice-captain, thinking that if he can bounce back to form, they can take that decision of making him the captain in the future. But there are very few bowlers who are made the captain. In my career, it was just Anil Kumble, who loved the format, was available and was a certainty in the XI," Sehwag added.
Indian team for England Tests: Shubman Gill (C), Rishabh Pant (VC & WK), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudharsan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Nitish Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel (WK), Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohd. Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav.
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