The likelihood to safe his first collection win as India’s Test captain awaits Shubman Gill when the second Test towards West Indies begins on the Arun Jaitley Stadium from Friday.
Having marched to victory by an innings and 140 runs inside three days in the primary Test, India’s need to re-establish its dominance at house, following a defeat by New Zealand final yr that halted a 12-year unbeaten streak, was off to a strong begin towards Roston Chase’s outfit.
With cricket in the Caribbean dealing with a number of issues on and off the turf, the chance of a turnaround in the nationwide capital this week appears bleak.
Regardless of the gulf between the 2 outfits, Gill was sure on match eve that India’s depth wouldn’t dip. “I don’t think your intensity drops down depending on the opposition. It doesn’t matter who we are playing. We want to be able to play at our own intensity and we want to win. When you are playing for India, you don’t need external motivation to up your intensity. We want to maintain our own standards,” the 26-year-old mentioned in the pre-match interplay on Thursday.
Key areas
If in any respect there are areas for the host to deal with, B. Sai Sudharsan’s detached begin to his Test profession and Nitish Kumar’s bit-part function in the opener benefit some dialogue. But with every of them, the think-tank is eager to take a long-term view.
“We believe that you have to see someone’s potential first and then see their game in its entirety,” Gill reasoned when requested particularly about Sai Sudharsan’s place. “Once you have given someone enough matches, then you can have a think over where he needs to learn. But as of now, we think he’s someone who can play for India at No. 3 for a very long time.”
In distinction to India’s earlier Test collection, towards England, the place each recreation went to the fifth day, the lopsided nature of final week’s duel has positioned additional scrutiny on West Indies’ future in the classical format.
“As a cricketing nation, if your red-ball base is very strong, you will automatically do well in ODIs and T20Is,” Gill weighed in on the disaster of the opposition. “I don’t know, but maybe their players’ focus is more on T20s and leagues. So if your focus is on that and you forget the base from where the game has started, the struggle starts from there.”
Over the subsequent 5 days, it’s as much as the West Indies to problem that notion.
The groups (from): India: Shubman Gill (Capt.), Ravindra Jadeja, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Ok.L. Rahul, B. Sai Sudharsan, Dhruv Jurel (wk), Washington Sundar, Nitish Kumar, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Axar Patel, Devdutt Padikkal and N. Jagadeesan (wk).
West Indies: Roston Chase (Capt.), Kevlon Anderson, Tagenarine Chanderpaul, John Campbell, Shai Hope (wk), Kevlon Anderson, Alick Athanaze, Tevin Imlach, Brandon King, Justin Greaves, Khary Pierre, Johann Layne, Jomel Warrican, Jediah Blades, Anderson Phillip and Jayden Seales.
