Young opening batsman Shubman Gill has been asked to return home from the UK by the BCCI after he has sustained a stress injury to his shins. His participation in the five-Test series against England is in serious doubt, according to reports.
Gill, who made a spectacular beginning to his Test career during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Australia last winter, has had a difficult time since. The player didn’t trouble the scorers much during the home series versus England and the World Test Championship final versus New Zealand and is now sidelined with an untimely injury.
Despite the lengthy nature of the assignment, however, India haven’t yet confirmed Gill’s direct replacement. According to a Cricbuzz report, “there is no immediate plan to send a replacement for Gill, whose unavailability has got the team management brooding over a potential ‘what-if’ situation.”
The team management wouldn’t want a situation where any of their available openers are also out with an injury or worse, give a positive COVID-19 test, which would lead to panic.
Reportedly, KL Rahul is considered only a backup middle-order batsman, which leaves the management with just two opening batsmen – Rohit Sharma and Mayank Agarwal – in the original squad Bengal opener Abhimanyu Easwaran present among the standbys.
Aware of the situation, the team management sent a mail recently to the selection committee, seeking more alternatives without specifically naming anyone.
“They have left it to the selectors to name a replacement, be it Prithvi Shaw or Devdutt Padikkal or whoever,”
an official close to the developments told Cricbuzz.
Given the pandemic, however, it won’t be easy to fly in anyone now. Considering if Shaw and Padikkal are indeed the chosen ones, they are currently in Sri Lanka for the white-ball series. The Island nation is among the countries part of the UK government’s Red List amid the COVID-19 outbreak, just like its neighbours India.
And those coming from Red List territories can’t enter the UK unless one is British or an Irish national, or a special exemption is provided as the Indian team received ahead of the WTC final.
An idea could be to isolate the replacement player or players in a foreign country not part of the UK government’s Red List and then get him flying across to England. The BCCI had done this for Rohit last year in Sydney, albeit that was an intra-state case with the Queensland government opting for extensive lockdown.
The Indian board is also busy focusing on providing each of the travelling Indian cricketers with the second jab of vaccination. The players, their family members and coaches, among others part of the touring contingent, had already taken their first jabs last month before leaving for England. And they could now have their vaccination completed on July 7 or 9, as reported by Cricbuzz after a word from a BCCI source.
The touring Indian players are currently on a break since the WTC final against the Kiwis and will be reassembling on July 14 in Durham, where they’ll have a pre-series camp, including a possible first-class game or two, before shifting base to Nottingham.
Trent Bridge hosts the first Test from August 4, followed by matches at Lord’s (August 12-16), Headingley (August 25-29), The Oval (September 2-6) and Manchester (September 10-14). The series will initiate India’s campaign in the second cycle of the Test championship.
Keeping in mind India’s poor Test record in England in recent years – 12 losses in last 15 Tests – Virat Kohli and company have a herculean task ahead of themselves.
