Shubman Gill will bat well with responsibility: Monty Panesar

Ex-England spinner Monty Panesar has opined that Shubman Gill will bat with a lot more responsibility after being appointed as the captain of the Indian Test team. Gill became India’s 37th Test captain as he replaced Rohit Sharma in the prestigious role, who recently announced his retirement from the longest format of the game.

Gill's first assignment as India's red-ball skipper will be the upcoming five-match Test series against England, which marks the beginning of the World Test Championship (WTC) campaigns for both teams in the 2025-2027 cycle. Ahead of the all-important series, Monty Panesar has backed the 25-year-old to excel as captain and bat with a lot of responsibility.

“I think Shubman Gill will be a good captain. He will bat well with responsibility. I think he will bat well with responsibility,” Panesar was quoted as saying by India Today.

Gill has played 32 Test matches in his career so far and scored 1893 runs at an average of 35.05 with five hundreds and seven fifties to his name. However, he doesn’t have a great record on away tours, having scored just 88 runs from three Tests played in England with a highest score of 28. Hence, the new captain will have to turn things around, especially with veterans like Virat Kohli and Rohit retiring ahead of the England tour.

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England will benefit from fact that Virat and Rohit are not playing: Panesar

Speaking of the talismanic Rohit-Kohli duo, Panesar feels that the Three Lions will benefit from their absence during the high-voltage series, which gets underway on Friday, June 20 at Headingley, Leeds. The cricketer-turned-expert feels that the inexperienced Indian side could collapse against Ben Stokes' strong England side.

"England will benefit from the fact that Virat and Rohit are not playing. Their experience could have been used for India. But they (Team India) are inexperienced. What happens with inexperience? How will India play against England? We know how England can play. It's possible that India will collapse,” Panesar concluded.