What’s the problem with Gautam Gambhir and Shubman Gill?

Skipper Shubman Gill has begun his Test captaincy career on a losing note. He will be worried but nobody is currently more worried in this Indian setup than the head coach Gautam Gambhir. Under him, this is India’s seventh loss in the last nine Tests. Following the first Test loss, he tried to defend his players from facing the backlash over their sub-par performance. But in hindsight, even he knows that his team made numerous mistakes and that should be addressed. He tried to defend his players, although it wasn’t a wise thing.  

On being asked about the dropped catches, Gambhir told the reporters: 

“Catches do get dropped. The best fielders have missed catches. None of them did it on purpose,” 

Well, yes, nobody drops catches on purpose, and catches do get dropped. But, had those catches been taken, India would have been in a different position. So, those catches held importance in the context of the game. Had the fielders dropped 1 or 2 catches, it would have been understandable. But dropping the catches of well-set and big batters on seven occasions is a mistake that must be acknowledged in the first place. India, especially Yashasvi Jaiswal, need to work on their fielding before they take the field in the second Test. 

The reporters also asked the head coach about the bowling performance and Gambhir didn’t want to be too harsh on his bowlers. He stressed the need to develop a young fast bowling attack rather than criticising them. Fair enough! But had he just talked a little bit about the periods when the bowling attack didn’t bowl well, it would have been a much more suitable response. The fans would have known how Gambhir viewed India's bowling performance. 

In the next game, Jasprit Bumrah won’t be playing, as per reports. Arshdeep Singh is likely to make his Test debut and it will be a young bowling attack. But India need to win the Test, or else it will dent their confidence. They need to have a strategy in place. They need to tell Mohammed Siraj and Ravindra Jadeja to step up. They need to hit the right lengths for a long period or these English batters won't think twice before hitting boundaries if given the slightest of width outside of off-stump. 

Shubman Gill is a young captain but even a young MS Dhoni took authority and made hard decisions. He needs to have a big heart and make hard decisions if he wants to. You should make the players feel secure but you need to ask yourself first - 

“Whether I trust these players.” 

MS Dhoni was adamant about having Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, and Ravindra Jadeja in his team no matter what because he had trust in them. Does Gill have the same trust in the eleven players he is picking? Is he satisfied with the team that he is picking? 

Does he have the guts to say ‘Jaddu Bhai, you aren’t bowling well, lately. You will be dropped from the next game if you don't perform well or he cares about his image too much. 

It will be interesting to see what team India’s eleven will be because picking 20 wickets is the most important thing to win a Test match in England. Yes, it’s a young bowling attack but he needs to point it out when they are not bowling according to the plan. 

That’s what the previous captains did and that’s what Gill needs to do. 

India lost seven wickets for 41 in the first innings and six wickets for 31 in the second innings. Let’s face it, the players felt complement when they saw 430 and 335 on the board in the first and second innings. Otherwise, they would have tried to build partnerships. Gautam Gambhir did address that and called it disappointing. 

"Yes, from a batting point of view, it was disappointing. I think we lost seven wickets for 40-odd runs in the first innings. In the second innings, we lost six wickets for 30-odd runs. We had the opportunity to push for 600 in the first innings. We could have dominated if we had scored that many. But again, these things happen. Hopefully, we will learn from this," he said.

Again, how will they address this issue? Their batting isn’t too deep and thus, the tail needs to take that responsibility and grind it out. 

Will Shardul go out? Will Nitish Reddy come in? Will they play with an extra batter or an extra bowler? 

Shubman Gill needs to take the field with the players that he trusts and then make them feel secure.