Cricketer-turned-expert Sanjay Manjrekar has stated that Team India head coach Gautam Gambhir will love working with new Test captain Shubman Gill ahead of the team's five-match Test series against England, starting on June 20. Gambhir has a huge task on his hands as he leads a pretty young Indian team sans Virat Kohli, Ravi Ashwin, and Rohit Sharma. While the southpaw is used to working with the young team in the T20Is, Test cricket is a completely different ball game.
In the T20I side, the former India opening batter gave freedom to young players, like Rinku Singh, Abhishek Sharma, and Tilak Varma. Manjrekar noted that Gambhir was very different with a younger captain, Suryakumar Yadav than he was with the veteran player Rohit Sharma in ODIs and Tests.
"Gautam Gambhir, as a coach, will enjoy a young captain with him. Because you see him as a coach when he is with Suryakumar Yadav as the Indian captain versus, say, Rohit Sharma. So, he is going to enjoy that job. There is going to be a better kind of relationship between the captain and the coach," Manjrekar said on ESPN Cricinfo.
Gautam Gambhir has nothing to lose with the Shubman Gill-led Test team: Sanjay Manjrekar
Manjrekar further stated that the Team India coach has nothing to lose with the Shubman Gill-led young Test team. Batting will be in the spotlight as it is fairly inexperienced, with only KL Rahul and Rishabh Pant having played more than 40 Tests. Gill, who is still establishing himself in Test cricket, will not only have the pressure of scoring runs but also the burden of captaincy.
"The advantage that Shubman Gill has, and this team has, it was a bit like the team of the 90s when we went to New Zealand, where Mohammad Azharuddin, out of the blue, was made the captain. You go with the feeling that you have got nothing to lose. The big names have gone, Bumrah was not the captain, it was almost like Gill had to do the job," Manjrekar said.
This will be the first instance where Gill will be leading the Test side. He has previously captained India in T20Is in the 2024 Zimbabwe tour. The 25-year-old has IPL experience, as he has led the Titans for the past two seasons.
