Shubman Gill is tactically reactive rather than proactive: David Lloyd

Former English cricketer and commentator David Lloyd stated that new Indian Test captain Shubman Gill’s leadership turned out to be a bit reactive rather than proactive in the Leeds Test against England.

Notably, England went on to defeat India by five wickets, chasing down 371 runs in the fourth innings as Indian bowlers failed to live up to the expectations on the Day 5 surface at Headingley in Leeds.

“The intrigue is with Shubman Gill, who’s a very inexperienced skipper. How’s he going to come back from that. He’s got Ravindra Jadeja and Karun Nair, who are in their 30s. So he’s got experience in his team. It’s great having a young team that he’s got. But he’s tactically he’s reactive rather than proactive in the stuff that he’s doing,” Lloyd said on the Stick to Cricket show.

Former England captain Alastair Cook also shared a few words on the new Indian captain Gill, stating that there will always be a phase when the team gets used to the new leader, similar to what has happened to Ben Stokes during his early days as captain.

“When you take over a team, there will always be a phase when the team gets used to the new leader. This happened with (Ben) Stokes when he came in. It took a while (for England players) to get used to him when he came in and said, ‘We’re going to try and smash every ball,’ Cook stated.

Also, the former India spinner Murali Kartik also commented, stating there were too many players (Rishabh Pant, KL Rahul) offering suggestions to the new skipper Gill, which could complicate things. 

“At one point I felt there were too many captains. I just couldn’t understand that. KL Rahul was making hand movements, Rishabh Pant was also doing it, and so was Shubman Gill who is actually the man appointed as captain. I couldn’t understand those multiple hand signals. You wouldn’t want to complicate things. There is only one captain,” Kartik told Cricbuzz.

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