A bit of spice to the Anderson-Tendulkar trophy was added during the third Test at Lord’s when Zak Crawley and Ben Duckett tried to run down the clock on the evening of Day 3. Indian skipper Shubman Gill and the other players got quite agitated with the methods used by Crawley, and there was a bit of a heated exchange between both parties. Immediately after that, comparisons were drawn between Gill and Virat Kohli, the captain. Former Indian cricketer Aakash Chopra did say that even after the Lord’s Test, the body language of the side did not look good at Old Trafford, and he noted that it would have never happened under Kohli.
“Many questions were raised, and there were a few comparisons as well. If Virat Kohli is king, his name (Gill’s) has been kept prince, so the comparisons start quickly. I remember two or three very interesting comparisons. The first was the fight that happened at the Lord’s ground. You lost the match after that,” Aakash Chopra said, speaking on his YouTube channel.
“A ruckus started at that stage as to why was he fighting, and that he should play in his own style. After that, you reached Old Trafford, and it was said that the body language didn’t look good, and that it never happened like that in Virat Kohli’s captaincy, where you just go through the motions,” he added.
This is the first series for Gill as Test captain, and it ended 2-2. Chopra said his captaincy is still a work in progress. “The captaincy is a work in progress, but he is 25 years old. He will learn. It was just his first series. He was seen following the ball at times, but we have seen that with all captains. We have seen that with Rohit Sharma, MS Dhoni, Virat Kohli, and everyone, that they placed fielders wherever the ball went at some stage,” Chopra said.
“Could he have been braver in his team selections? I will say yes, he could have been braver, but it’s easier said than done. I do feel very strongly that Kuldeep Yadav should have been played matches, but if you keep yourself in Shubman Gill’s shoes, you would say the batting is not doing that good, the No. 3 hasn’t gotten settled, Rishabh Pant has gotten injured, and I don’t know what needs to be done at No. 6,” Chopra concluded.
