Hail the Prince: Shubman Gill's India captaincy a prophecy fulfilled but Test doubts remain
Shubman Gill was a pretty laid-back character when he played for Glamorgan three summers ago. So laid back, in fact, that early on during his time there he parked the brand new Volvo the club had arranged for him and apparently left the keys in the ignition. Sure enough, after training, he returned to find it had been pinched.
Cue panic in the finance department at Sophia Gardens, calls to the insurers and the like. But at least his new teammates had material for some lighthearted mickey-taking. Gill, just turned 23 but already an India star on the rise, had arrived for three September rounds of the County Championship in 2022. Saying hello with 92 on debut in Cardiff, and goodbye with 119 at Hove, it sounds like he fitted in well.
'When he first turned up to nets, you knew he was just a class above everyone else,' Sam Northeast, the club's middle-order veteran, tells the Guardian. 'I don't want to put down other overseas players I've played with over the years but he was on a different level to a lot of them. It was just the amount of time he had, the shots he possessed, and the ability to place the ball where he wanted. We knew he was a star in the making.
'As a person, he was extremely relaxed, and I think you probably have to be that way to deal with the scrutiny which comes with playing for India. He was a little bit in the clouds, actually. A little bit 'are you here? Are you with us?' The closest I've seen to that is probably captaining Kagiso Rabada at Kent, who was very similar. Just no stress.'
Like a lot of India players who come over to play county cricket, Gill enjoyed the relative anonymity of life in Cardiff; the ability to walk down the street without being swamped by requests for selfies. And though a transactional stint on one level – the club were chasing promotion to Division One, Gill his own improvement against the red Dukes ball – he has stayed in contact with a number of teammates since.
'It was striking how good he was and very knowledgeable,' says Mark Wallace, director of cricket at Glamorgan. 'They call them cricket badgers these days. He knew the records of the players he was up against, the coaches too. Alan Wilkins, who is now our president, alerted us to his possible availability and then it was a case of contacting his agent, realising it wouldn't cost a king's ransom, and getting it sorted.'
Glamorgan didn't quite get up that season and remain in Division Two but Gill's world has changed exponentially of late. After Rohit Sharma retired from Test cricket last month, and Jasprit Bumrah told the Board of Control for Cricket in India his workload management would make captaincy too messy, the head coach, Gautam Gambhir, turned to Gill to lead. Five Tests in England, where India have not won a series since 2007, make for a serious baptism.
The promotion was not a surprise in one sense, rather a long-held prophecy fulfilled. Born in Fazilka, Punjab, near the border with Pakistan, before moving to Mohali aged eight to be closer to the best facilities, the nickname Prince has followed him round to the point of sometimes appearing on his bat stickers. An Under-19s World Cup winner in 2018, schooled in the Indian Premier League and boasting the second-highest one-day international average in history (59.04), it always felt a case of when, not if, he would lead his country.
Aged 25 and set to become India's fifth-youngest Test captain, the timing of Gill's appointment is still intriguing though. Gill is silky on the eye, back foot dominant and wonderfully correct; as the folks at Glamorgan attest, it all looks so good. And in terms of leadership, the CV includes two seasons at Gujarat Titans in the IPL – runners-up in 2025 – five T20is and an India A tour. By modern standards it is not a total Hail Mary.
But averaging 35 from 32 Tests, and with four of his five centuries coming in India – and the other in Bangladesh – the back catalogue of batting against the red ball still has plenty of gaps. England is one, with an average of 14 from two World Test Championship finals and a single appearance against the Bazballers in 2022. After a run of established greats being elevated to the captaincy, India have chosen a player who is still figuring things out.
Like a number of Test careers, there have been sliding-doors moments. Last year, say, when England went 1-0 up in Hyderabad, a second-innings duck dropped Gill's Test average fall below 30 for the first time. According to the Indian Express, Rahul Dravid, then head coach, he was on the brink of sending his No 3 back to domestic cricket, only for a second-innings 104 in Vizag – in a 106-run victory – to prompt a rethink.
By the end of a series that India won 4-1, Gill had banked another century in Dharamshala, his confidence restored to the point of telling Jimmy Anderson to retire during some on-field verbals. While Anderson soon got his revenge for Test wicket No 699, that flare-up supported a prediction from Jos Buttler, an IPL teammate this year, that Gill will blend Sharma's serenity with moments of aggression like Kohli.
It will not be straightforward. India go into Friday's first Test off the back of six defeats and one win from their past eight outings and, given those high-profile retirements, the team is now in transition. Handed the keys much earlier than many expected and needing to lead with the bat, Gill will have precious little time to get up to speed.
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