NEW DELHI: India are set to kick off their five-match Test series against England on June 20 at Headingley in Leeds. The visitors will be without stalwarts Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, both of whom recently retired from Test cricket. Will England gain an upper hand in the absence of these two Indian superstars? Former England spinner Graeme Swann doesn’t think so. According to Swann, India still possess enough firepower in both batting and bowling departments to pose a strong challenge.“It’s kind of the perfect warm up for the Ashes, to be honest. India is a huge series and the last two or three times we’ve gone to India, we’ve been thoroughly outplayed. So in our own backyard, our home turf, we need to beat India. We need to play well. They’re not going to have Virat Kohli or Rohit Sharma. They’re two absolute experienced superstars of the bat. So without that, yes, they’ve got great players coming in instead, but we’ve got bowlers who exploit our conditions well, who can bowl really well,” Swann told Sky Sports Cricket.“I think England must look to win this series, and I think they should look to win it convincingly as well. I’ll take 4-1, 3-2 at a push, but I really hope we do do well and get the confidence moving into the Ashes,” he added.‘GILL A MIX OF ROHIT AND VIRAT’India’s new Test captain Shubman Gill is a blend of his predecessors Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, but he will be “very much his own man” when he leads the national side in the highly anticipated five-Test series, believes Jos Buttler.Buttler, former England white-ball captain who played under Gill during this year’s IPL, said the 25-year-old would need to find the right balance between leadership and his own performance with the bat.“He’s a really impressive player and an impressive young man,” Buttler said on his podcast For The Love of Cricket alongside former England pacer Stuart Broad.“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.“Kohli (was) that sort of real aggressive (character), really transformed the Indian team, in your face, up for the contest. Rohit was a bit on the other side, a bit more laid back, very cool, calm, collected customer, but with that sort of fight,” he added.
Buttler expects Gill to “be a bit in the middle”.“He’s obviously learned from those two guys… but he’ll be very much his own man.”Buttler also highlighted the immense pressure and scrutiny that comes with the job of captaining the Indian Test team.“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,” he said.“I don’t think we can quite understand the level of interest and the stardom that these guys have. You see it around the IPL, you’re aware of it, but actually living that yourself… I think they say the Indian Test captain is like the third or fourth-most influential person in India, behind the Prime Minister, so you really are put up on that pedestal.“(There are a) one-and-half billion people, all cricket-mad, so it’s going to be a huge job for him. 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?”India squad: Shubman Gill (c), Rishabh Pant (vc, wk), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, Sai Sudarshan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhruv Jurel, Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Arshdeep Singh, Kuldeep Yadav.
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