India’s new Test skipper, Shubman Gill, said his goal is to create a team culture where every member is ‘secure and happy’. Gill will lead India for the first time in a tough away assignment in England, with the first Test starting on June 20 in Headingley.
“It was not even in my dreams that I would be the captain of the Indian cricket team. So, apart from all the silverware and trophies aside, I really would like to build a team culture where everyone is very secure and happy,” Gill told Skysports.
“I know it can be a difficult environment, especially with all the competition and the number of matches that we play and different squads coming in. But if I’m able to do that, I think that would be my goal,” he added.
“So, keeping a secure environment and making the player feel secure in his abilities and his capabilities, I feel, is one of the most important things that a leader has to do.”
Gill was full of praise for his predecessor, Rohit Sharma, who hung up his boots from the longest format of the game on May 7.
“It can seem like he is not aggressive, but Rohit is very aggressive in terms of his tactics. He is very clear with his communication before the matches, during the series and even after the series, what he wants from the players,” the skipper said.
“The kind of environment Rohit bhai kept, even if he is swearing at you, you would not take it to your heart. That’s just kind of his personality. I think that’s a great trait to have.
“He’s firm, but even if he’s being hard on you, you know that it’s not coming from his heart. It’s coming from a team perspective,” Gill added.
The Punjab cricketer said he had a conversation with the outgoing captain about the road ahead for the game.
“This is a conversation that I’ve had with Rohit bhai a couple of times, that ideally in the next 5, 7, 10 or 15 years, where would we want the Indian cricket team culture to be?” Gill also said he had learnt a lot from the “proactive” leadership of Virat Kohli.
“When I played under Virat, I think his proactiveness in Test matches with the field or with the ideas or with his thinking was something that I liked and that I picked up. If he thinks that, okay, this plan is not working, he would immediately have another plan, communicate to the bowler what he wants from them,” he noted.
Gill also shed light on the conversations he had with head coach Gautam Gambhir and chief selector Ajit Agarkar ahead of his maiden series as skipper.
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“They just want me to be able to express myself as a leader. I mean, that’s what they have told me, there are no expectations. They are not expecting me to, you know, to do something that I’m not capable of,” he said.
A major dilemma for Gill will be his handling of pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah. Agarkar himself had said during the squad announcement press conference that pacer will not be fit to play all five Test matches.
“It’s more based on match to match and see how much workload there has been on him. That’s what we are trying to look at. You need to see how much workload he had in this particular match.
“We don’t want to have a predetermined mindset. Okay, these are the matches that he would want to play because there are so many factors that can not go in your favour in determining whether he is going to play the next match or not,” Gill explained.
(Inputs from PTI)