Virat Kohli drew curtains on his Test career last month. His Test retirement sent shockwaves across the cricket fraternity, as many felt that he still had a few more years of red-ball cricket left in him. He finished his Test career with 9230 runs. Now, all eyes will be on how Shubman Gill and his teammates handle the pressure and take Indian Test cricket forward after the Kohli-Rohit era.
India will soon begin a crucial five-match Test series against England, starting on June 20 at Headingley Carnegie. This will be their first big red-ball assignment after the retirement of two modern greats, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. Both senior players stepped away from Test cricket last month, leaving behind massive gaps in leadership and batting strength.
Shubman Gill talks about filling Virat Kohli’s void in Test set-up
Speaking ahead of the tour, Shubman Gill addressed the speculation surrounding India’s new batting order. With Kohli and Rohit gone, there are questions about who will bat where and how the lineup will shape up.
“We haven’t really decided on the… we still have some time,” Gill said when asked about the batting order. “We will be playing an intra-squad match, and we’ll also have a 10-day camp in London. So we still have a little bit of time. I think we can decide on the batting order once we go there,” he said.
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India’s last Test series win in England came back in 2007. Under Rahul Dravid’s captaincy, India won that three-match series 1-0. Since then, India has toured England several times but has failed to win a Test series there. They came agonizingly close in 2021, where they led the series by 2-1, but the final Test was postponed and played in 2022, where England managed to win the game and draw the series.
Meanwhile, under the captaincy of Gill, India will be hoping to repeat the success of 2007. But it won’t be easy at all in the first place. It remains to be seen how Gill and Co. will counter England’s Bazball challenge.
