India name Shubman Gill as new Test captain before England series

MUMBAI: India named top-order batsman Shubman Gill as the new Test captain, the cricket board said Saturday, as it announced the team for next month´s all-important tour of England.

Gill, 25, succeeds Rohit Sharma, who retired from Tests recently along with Virat Kohli. He will take charge in the five-Test series in England starting June 20.

Gill will lead a team in transition after Rohit, 38, and Kohli, 36, walked away from the five-day format in the space of six days this month to leave a big void.

“Shubman Gill-led TeamIndia are READY for an action-packed Test series,” the Board of Control for Cricket in India said in a statement.

His vice-captain will be Rishabh Pant.

Gifted with a wide range of shots, Gill has led Gujarat Titans into the playoffs of the current Indian Premier League T20 tournament.

“Obviously, he´s very young but we´ve seen the improvement,” chief selector Ajit Agarkar told reporters after the team announcement in Mumbai.

He said that, as well as Gill´s IPL performances, the board “take feedback from a lot of people” and the choice was a “unanimous decision”.

“It´s obviously going to be a high-pressure job. But we´re hopeful that we´ve picked the right guy. I mean, he´s a terrific player,” Agarkar said.

“It´s a big job, big transition,” he said, especially with “two of our big players retiring”. “We were all confident that he is the guy to take us forward”, he said.

However, pace bowler Mohammed Shami has been left out of the 18-member squad due to fitness concerns, Agarkar said.

“He´s had a little bit of a setback over the last week or so,” Agarkar said, adding medical scans had ruled Shami out for the series.

Pace bowler Jasprit Bumrah is in the squad, although he will not be able to play all five Tests. Bumrah´s workload is being managed while he recovers from a career-threatening back injury -- a key reason for him not getting the Test captaincy.

Bumrah was Rohit´s deputy in India´s last Test tour of Australia. Fast bowler Mohammed Siraj returns after he was dropped from the ODI team for the Champions Trophy this year. Batsman Karun Nair, who hit an unbeaten 303 against England in Chennai in 2016, will make a comeback eight years after he last played a Test for India. Gill´s opening partner at Gujarat, Sai Sudharsan, who leads the IPL batting chart with 638 runs, also made the cut.

Agarkar said coach Gautam Gambhir and Gill will decide the batting order and who will replace Rohit and Kohli as opener and number two batter.

Squad: Shubman Gill (capt), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Rishabh Pant (vice-capt, wk), Dhruv Jurel (wk), Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Akash Deep, Prasidh Krishna, Sai Sudharsan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Arshdeep Singh.