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David Lloyd criticised Shubman Gill’s reactive captaincy after India’s loss, while Alastair Cook defended him, comparing his situation to Ben Stokes’ early days as captain.
Shubman Gill’s Test captaincy started with a loss. (AP)
Former England cricketers David Lloyd and Alastair Cook had differing opinions on Shubman Gill’s captaincy, which has become a significant talking point following India’s historic loss in the first Test of the five-match series for the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy in Leeds. Despite dominating the majority of the action over the first four days, India handed the game to England on Day 5 due to poor bowling and fielding errors.
Lloyd criticised Gill’s approach, describing it as ‘reactive rather than proactive’. However, former England captain Cook was more understanding, comparing Gill’s situation to Ben Stokes’ early days as England’s Test team captain.
“The intrigue is with Shubman Gill, who’s a very inexperienced skipper. How’s he going to come back from that? He’s got Ravindra Jadeja and Karun Nair, who are in their 30s. So he’s got experience in his team. It’s great having a young team that he’s got. But tactically, he’s reactive rather than proactive in the stuff that he’s doing,” Lloyd was quoted as saying on Sky Sports’ Stick to Cricket podcast.
How Cook Defended Gill
Cook responded by saying that it takes time for a team to gel under a new captain.
“When you take over a team, there will always be a phase when the team gets used to the new leader. This happened with (Ben) Stokes when he came in. It took a while (for England players) to get used to him when he came in and said, ‘We’re going to try and smash every ball’,” Cook replied.
Despite vice-captain Rishabh Pant scoring centuries in each innings of the opening Tests and other key batters like KL Rahul, Yashasvi Jaiswal, and Gill himself hitting their respective tons, India failed to achieve bigger totals in both innings and also dropped crucial catches. This is the first time in Indian cricket history that a team lost a Test after five individual hundreds were scored by its batters.
India collapsed from 430/3 in the first innings to 471, losing seven wickets for 41 runs. In the second innings, they crumbled to 364 all out from 333/4, losing six wickets for 31 runs.
On Day 5, India could not defend a fourth-innings target of 371 under overcast conditions, with England comfortably chasing it down with five wickets to spare.
Ritayan Basu, Senior Sub-Editor, Sports at News18.com. Has been covering domestic and and international football for nearly a decade. Has played and covered badminton. Ocassionally writes on cricket content, ha…Read More
Ritayan Basu, Senior Sub-Editor, Sports at News18.com. Has been covering domestic and and international football for nearly a decade. Has played and covered badminton. Ocassionally writes on cricket content, ha… Read More
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