Legendary cricketer Sachin Tendulkar feels the new Indian skipper, Shubman Gill needs to be given both time and support in becoming the leader of the team and cautions the youngester against focusing on the opinoin of others instead of following his own well thought plans. Gill the 25-year-old will take over the captaincy of the five-Test series against England, starting the second cycle of the World Test Championship, which will start this Friday. The hosts will miss Virat Kohli, the former Test captain, not to mention Rohit Sharma and old-timer off spinner Ravichandran Ashwin, who have retired as Test players.
Sachin Tendulkar’s Statement
“I think he (Gill) has to be given time. He has to be supported,” Tendulkar told PTI in an exclusive interview on the eve of the opening Test in Headingley.
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“I feel there are going to be a lot of opinions that ‘he should do this and he should do that’. And all those kind of things will come into play. But what he should be focused on is, what is the team’s plan. What was the discussion in the dressing room. And is it going according to that? “And all the decisions that are being made, are being made in the interest of the team or not, is what he should be thinking of…not the outside world where someone feels that he is being too attacking or he is being too defensive and all that. Those are opinions and people will give opinions.
“Eventually, what happens in the dressing room and what he is doing in the interest of the team is going to matter. And that is what should count, nothing else,” said the man, who has an unprecedented 51 Test hundreds in 200 games.
Indian Squad For The England Vs India Test Series
Shubman Gill (c), Rishabh Pant (vc, wk), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudarshan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel, Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav.
