The Indian squad for the blockbuster England tour was announced last week. Shubman Gill was named as the new Test skipper, while swashbuckling wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant was named his deputy. Many felt Jasprit Bumrah would take the mantle from Rohit but his fitness was highlighted as the decision behind not naming him the next red-ball captain. Bumrah had led the Indian unit twice in the disastrous tour of Australia. While Bumrah did lead India to a win in Perth, their only in the series, and in Sydney, which was the final match of the tour, a back spasm brought an abrupt end to his participation.
However, the decision to name Gill as the successor to Rohit Sharma, who recently announced retirement from Test, didn't sit well with few experts, including Virender Sehwag and Manoj Tiwary.
The duo while interacting on Cricbuzz opined their views on the squad and Tiwary even questioned Gill's spot in the playing XI. “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,” he said.
Sehwag, on the other hand, agreed with the selectors for not giving Bumrah the added responsibilty. However, he disagreed with Tiwary and stated Gill as the "third best option" and not the second. “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,” he said.
Sehwag then heaped praise on Pant for revolutionising Test cricket and making it entertaining for modern day spectators after Virat Kohli, who too announced retirement from the format recently. Sehwag also expressed that if Pant returns to his best he could well be projected as a potential captain in the future.
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“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.”
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