Gill savours his first series win as Test captain as he believes ‘It’s about taking the right options’ for the team.
‘It’s about taking the right options’ – Gill on first series win as Test captain.
Following Tuesday’s seven-wicket victory over the West Indies to earn a 2-0 series triumph, Shubman Gill, who recently completed his first Test series victory as captain of India, said he was “kind of getting used to it [the experience]”.
For any Test captain, four victories in seven Tests is a fantastic start, but leading India raises the bar. It was in reaction to India pushing the follow-on after gaining a 270-run lead in Delhi, particularly following the 177-run third-wicket partnership between century-makers Shai Hope and John Campbell.
“It’s about taking the right options in the given situation,” he said in the presentation ceremony when asked what he had learnt after seven Tests (starting with the 2-2 result in England) as the leader of the pack. “I try to make the most probable decision in the given situation that we are in. Sometimes you have to take some bold decisions, that X-factor depending on which player can get you certain runs or get you those wickets.”
“We were around 300 runs ahead and the wicket was quite dead, and we thought even if we scored 500 runs, we have to get six or seven wickets on day five it would be a tough day for us,” Gill explained.
The other little niggle was Nitish Kumar Reddy, the fast-bowling allrounder in the XI, not bowling a single over. “[He] didn’t really get to bowl any overs in this match but we don’t want players to only play matches overseas – that puts a lot of pressure on the players,” Gill said. “If we want to groom certain players that we think can help us win matches overseas [we need to find spots for them], because that’s been the challenge for us.”
Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav were two players who had significant roles in the series and had plenty of bowling opportunities. After years of R Ashwin being the primary spinner at home, two spinners are attempting to work together.
“I could get chance to bowl more overs,” Jadeja said with a laugh after collecting his player-of-the-series award. “We’ve been doing wonderful work as a team. We know what brand of cricket we have been playing since last five-six months, so it’s a good sign as a team that we continue to do it for a long period of time.”
“In terms of pace, I thought, probably the pace, and the drift, which I got in Ahmedabad, if you compare that to this Test match, there wasn’t any drift here, because of the surface. The wicket was too dry,” he said of the changes he had to make between the two Tests. “Playing two Test matches back-to-back is always fun, and bowling lot of overs and getting the breakthrough in the middle is something I enjoy.”