India’s dramatic collapse on Day 5 of the primary Test in Leeds has sparked critical debate round Shubman Gill’s captaincy, with former England cricketers David Lloyd and Alastair Cook providing contrasting views. Despite dominating massive elements of the match, India succumbed to a 5-wicket loss towards England, handing the hosts a 1-0 lead within the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy sequence. Gill’s management, in his first main Test project as captain, got here below scrutiny after India’s tactical errors and sloppy fielding proved pricey on the ultimate day. David Lloyd, talking on Sky Sports’ “Stick to Cricket podcast”, was crucial of Gill’s strategy. “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 tactically, he’s reactive rather than proactive in the stuff that he’s doing,” Lloyd mentioned.
However, former England captain Alastair Cook urged persistence, drawing parallels to Ben Stokes’ early days as skipper. “When you are taking over a group, there’ll at all times be a section when the group will get used to the brand new chief. This occurred with (Ben) Stokes when he got here in. It took some time (for England gamers) to get used to him when he got here in and mentioned, ‘We’re going to try to smash each ball,” Cook replied.
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India’s defeat was particularly surprising given five centuries across both innings — from Rishabh Pant (twice), KL Rahul, Yashasvi Jaiswal, and Gill himself. Still, collapses from 430/3 to 471 and 333/4 to 364, along with dropped catches, allowed England to chase down 371 under clouds with relative ease.
