To lose one legend before a huge Test series could be put down to misfortune, but losing two looked anything but careless for India at Headingley, where two of the younger faces of their batting lineup stepped comfortably into the shoes of giants.
It is difficult to exaggerate the scale of the setback to India after the decisions of both Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, two of their biggest superstars, to announce their retirements from Test cricket ahead of this marquee five-match series against England.
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That left them with a highly talented but inexperienced — and potentially even vulnerable — looking batting line up which was asked immediately to face the music on the first day of the first Test in Leeds after Ben Stokes won the toss and put India in to bat.
Under most scrutiny was a new captain in Shubman Gill who stepped into one of the most high-pressured roles in sport. Gill was not even first choice to succeed Sharma, with Jasprit Bumrah having insisted he would not be fit enough to lead India in five Test matches over seven weeks.
Yet if Gill was feeling the strain on his first day in high office then it did not show. Having come in after lunch, he oozed class and skill. The captain was utterly unruffled as he eased his way to an unbeaten 127 and, together with fellow century-maker Yashasvi Jaiswal, batted his side into a position of considerable strength at 359 for three at the close on day one.
India rejoice in the brilliance of Jaiswal and Gill (George Wood/Getty Images)
Gill and Jaiswal are hardly rookies but, at 25 and 23, they represent the future of India’s Test batting as well as the present. They might have been burdened with the weight of Indian expectations on their shoulders at Headingley. They carried them effortlessly.
The new captain had cut a calm and relaxed figure at his pre-match press conference.
A measure of the job ahead of him was summed up when the opening questioner asked Gill about his “coronation moment” and whether he had grasped the “enormity” of the responsibility being thrust upon him. He just smiled and batted the question away as easily as he would an under-par England bowling line-up on Friday, where he pulled and drove away at will in his distinctive style in progressing to a sixth hundred — and third against England — in his 33rd Test.
Talk of a coronation was a further reminder of the absence here of ‘King’ Kohli, but the man nicknamed ‘Prince’ — it is even stamped on his bat — took on the role at No 4 vacated by one of the biggest figures in Indian cricket history for the first time. He made it his own.
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“There used to be a king out there — today there’s a prince,” said former India wicketkeeper Dinesh Karthik on commentary with Sky Sports.
The only thing not regal about Gill here was his decision to wear black socks while batting, a fashion faux pas in Test cricket if ever there was one. Not that he will have cared.
The majestic Gill unfurls another cover drive (George Wood/Getty Images)
Gill has a much better record in home conditions than outside the subcontinent — he averaged just 14.66 in England before this Test — but, here, the hosts could do nothing to stop him. They tried different ploys, including a relentless barrage of early in-swingers at the start of his innings given the data suggested that is where he is at his weakest in these conditions. All to no avail.
Only when Gill almost ran himself out on just one did he look uncomfortable, but Ollie Pope’s throw from midwicket not only failed to hit the stumps but raced away to the boundary for overthrows and one of two ‘fives’ in the day.
To again almost quote Oscar Wilde, to concede one five when trying to run out the India captain may be considered misfortune. But to concede a second, when Harry Brook parried the ball onto a fielding helmet placed behind wicketkeeper Jamie Smith to penalise England and hand India five ‘extras’, was certainly carelessness.
There was one man in the England dressing room who would have been unsurprised at the ease with which Gill took on the Indian captaincy.
In 2020, England coach Brendon McCullum — then in charge of Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League, cricket’s biggest and most glitzy franchise competition — promoted a young Gill to his leadership group.
Gill had yet to play a Test. “Even though he is young I am a big believer in it’s not necessarily true just playing for a long time makes you a good leader,” explained McCullum at the time. “It’s about exhibiting the behaviours of a leader. To us, Shubman is one of those guys.”
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That Kolkata leadership group also included Eoin Morgan, the former England white-ball captain and architect of the attacking style that took them to World Cup success in 2019, an approach since replicated by McCullum and Stokes in Test cricket.
Morgan had no doubts India had chosen the right man to lead the post-Kohli and Sharma era. “He’s a natural leader,” Morgan told Sky Sports on Gill’s appointment last month. “He takes on responsibility within a group, he doesn’t mind questioning methodology within the camp, but ultimately the collective goal is what’s most important to him.”
Gill celebrates reaching his century (Alex Davidson/Getty Images)
What would definitely not have surprised England was the performance of Jaiswal. They saw plenty of the dynamic left-hander last year when losing 4-1 in India, the biggest setback endured by Bazball since Stokes and McCullum took up the reins in 2022.
So dominant was Jaiswal then that he scored a monumental 712 runs in the five-match series, the most ever scored by an Indian against England, and smashed double centuries in successive Tests at Visakhapatnam and Rajkot.
To be in India watching that series was to witness a boy who, at 12, left his home in Uttar Pradesh for Mumbai to try to make his name in the sport — he slept in tents on the maidans that have spawned so many cricketing talents and sold pani puri, a deep-fried street food, to earn pocket money — becoming the new poster boy of Indian cricket.
Not least when he hit Jimmy Anderson, the most prolific fast bowler in Test history, for three successive sixes during the second of those double hundreds in Rajkot; the first flicked over fine leg, the second flying over extra cover and the third disappearing back over Anderson’s head.
There was a little less of Jaiswal’s audacity in Leeds, but there was plenty of class as he scored a disproportionate 88 per cent of his 101 on the off-side, completing a century in his first Test in England just as he had on debut and in his first Test in Australia.
“I love scoring every hundred but this one was special,” said Jaiswal afterwards. “We were just trying to keep it simple and play within an area. If there is a loose ball I always believe you need to go for it. I really enjoyed it.”
Jaiswal scored his third Test century in six matches against England (Darren Staples/AFP via Getty Images)
It left plenty questioning Stokes’ decision to bowl on a sunny day when presented with a flat pitch that looked made for batting. But there was data method behind his apparent madness.
The previous six Tests at this famous ground have been won by the side bowling first while Stokes famously prefers to chase in Tests, with four of England’s victories in the opening Bazball summer of 2022 coming from reaching large fourth-innings targets.
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Since 2015 on a ground once known to suit seam bowling, batting has become easier and easier, an average of 26.81 per wicket on the first day swelling to 40.06 on day five. So it would be unwise to write off England just yet.
But, for now, it is all about India and the prince who has become India’s new king. Gill completed his hundred with a glorious drive for four off Josh Tongue and screamed almost in relief before embracing his vice-captain, Rishabh Pant. There was a bow, too, as the applause rained down.
The king is dead. Long live the king.
Click here to follow cricket on The Athletic and see more stories like this.
(Top photo: Gareth Copley/Getty Images)
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