England batsman Jos Buttler who played Shubman Gill at Gujarat Titans in the Indian Premier League (IPL) has given his verdict about the 25-year-old’s captaincy style saying he has a mix of Virat Kohli’s intensity and Rohit Sharma’s laid-back character. Gill who has been appointed as India’s new Test captain will begin his tenure with the first Test against England starting on Friday at Headingley.
Speaking on For the Love of Cricket, his new podcast with Stuart Broad, Buttler said he expected Gill to be his own man who won’t try to copy his predecessors. “He’s a really impressive player and an impressive young man,” Buttler said. “He’s pretty calm and measured when he speaks, but it’s interesting, I feel like on the field he’s got a bit of fight about him; a bit of intensity, quite passionate. I think he’ll be a mix of Kohli and Rohit.
Buttler then went on to elaborate. “Kohli was that sort of real aggressive character, really transformed the Indian team, in your face, up for the contest. Rohit a bit on the other side, a bit more laid back, very cool, calm, collected customer, but with that sort of fight. I feel like, from my time knowing Shubman so far, he’ll be a bit in the middle. He’s obviously learned from those two guys… but he’ll be very much his own man,” Buttler added.
Speaking on what will be Gill’s biggest challenge, Buttler said the young Indian batsman shouldn’t let his captaincy affect his batting. During his captaincy stint with England white-ball team, with the team struggling in both the 50-over and T20 World Cup, Buttler’s own batting form suffered.
“He talked about compartmentalising batting and captaining; so when he’s batting he just wants to be a batter, and then he will try and work on his captaincy and try and separate the two roles. When you’re doing such a big job as being captain of the Indian cricket team, he’ll have to try and do that well and have some good people supporting him,” Buttler said.
Buttler also touched upon the stardom that Indian cricketers have to put up with which brings about its own expectations which make it all the more challenging. “It’s going to be a huge job for him. He’s obviously captained two seasons of IPL cricket, which is a big, pressurised job and he’s sort of the prince. Kohli is the king, Shubman is the prince: that’s the narrative that they spin out there, and I feel that he’s the coming man… Stepping into that No. 4, it’s big shoes, isn’t it? Coming behind Virat, and Sachin Tendulkar before that as well. That’s obviously a huge role,” Buttler added.