'We played very badly and when you play...': Shubman Gill admits India's poor fielding show during first Test against England

India Test captain Shubman Gill reflected on the team's defeat in the first Test match and emphasised the need to minimise mistakes against a strong team ahead of the second Test of the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy 2025. India lost the first Test match by five wickets despite five-centurions.

Ben Duckett's masterful 149 set the tone for a historic run chase as England chased down 371 runs to take a 1-0 lead in the opening Test of the five-Test match series.

"We played well in many moments of the match, but in the moments that were not that good, we played very badly. When you play against such a team and you have to make sure that you are doing the right thing and your mistakes are not so bad that you get completely out of the game," Shubman Gill said in the pre-match press conference.

"And on Day 5, we all knew that it wouldn't be that easy, even though there was 350 score on the board. But there was not that much help in the wicket for the bowlers. We had to put in very consistently tight lines, which I think we did very well in the first session. They didn't score that many runs in the first hour and in the first session."

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Gill observed that the Duke's ball will be easy to bat as they get older, and the lack of wickets prevents them from controlling the runs despite good, consistent bowling.

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"We saw with Duke's ball, especially on this ground, that as the ball gets older, it becomes easier to make runs, and if you don't take out the wicket, it becomes very difficult to contain the runs. So we did good bowling, we did consistent bowling, but because we couldn't take wickets, we didn't get half chances," Gill said.

Gill reflected on the drop catches by Indian fielders and said it is not easy when you are constantly dropping catches, especially when the bowlers are creating chances.

"We dropped some catches in the whole period. It's not easy when you are constantly dropping catches, especially when the bowlers are creating chances. But I think overall, we had a lot of positives in the last match as well. I think they didn't lose any wickets in 200 runs," he added.

Gill also reflected on the learnings from the first test, "I could have had a 50-run worth more partnership out there with Rishabh. That was my learning from when I was batting. And when we were bowling, there were learnings like once the ball gets old and it's getting soft, there isn't much happening. So, how would you contain or how would you control the run flow, especially with the way they bat," Gill said.

Coming back to the second Test, Gill confirmed that Team India will feature with two spinners in the second Test and there is a high possibility that Nitish Kumar Reddy will feature in place of Shadul Thakur and Jasprit Bumrah, who is available for the selection, will also likely to miss the clash due to workload management.