Hussain criticises Gill's captaincy; Broad calls out India's inability to close match: 'He didn't have on-field aura like Kohli'

Former England cricketer Nasser Hussain and Stuart Broad felt India’s inability to close the game despite being in ascendancy resulted in a historic five-wicket defeat against England in the first Test at Headingley on Tuesday. Hussain, in particular, was extremely critical of India’s new Test captain Shubman Gill’s captaincy as he compared it to that of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma.

While Gill does lack captaincy experience and the current Team India is made up of a lot of youngsters, they still had a better chance of winning the inaugural match of the five-Test series, but some poor fielding, lower-order batting and clueless bowling allowed England to cross the finish line handsomely.

Hussain criticises Gill’s captaincy

Hussain was quite brutal in his assessment as he felt Gill lacked the aura carried by the last two Indian Test captains – Kohli and Rohit – and that his captaincy was heavily influenced by the senior players.

“I thought I saw someone just finding his way, honestly. You’ve got to be very careful in the first Test match, the people he’s taken over from, Kohli, and then Rohit Sharma,” Hussain told Sky Sports while talking about Gill’s Test captaincy debut.

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“I thought he didn’t quite have that on-field aura as the names I mentioned there. You look down on those two previous names, and you immediately see who was in charge of India. I looked down from the press box, the commentary position, there were a lot of captains; it was a bit captaincy by committee, which can happen in your early days as a leader because you’re still senior players like Rishabh Pant and KL Rahul want to try and help you out as much as possible. I thought he followed the ball a lot. I thought he was reactive as opposed to proactive,” he added.

Former England captain Hussain also threw in Hardik Pandya’s name as he suggested Team India needs a player like the seam-bowling all-rounder to do well in England.

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“The slip cordon and the catching were poor, something that India have done well in the last two or three years and the collapses. And that concerns me because India has a lower order with spin bowling all-rounders and has had for the last decade, which are magnificent. Ashwin, Jadeja, Axar Patel,” he said.

“In England, they are still looking, I think, for that seam bowling all-rounder, you know, someone like a Hardik Pandya, going back to Ravi’s times, Kapil Dev or whatever, they are still looking for that lower-order bowler who can bat. And if they keep going for, what, seven for 41 and six for 30 or whatever, then this could be a quick series. They need to run down the order.”

Broad says England won due to India’s failures

Former fast bowler Broad lauded England for “calmly” finishing the tough task of chasing a total of 371 but highlighted that India were the better side over the majority of the game, but let the match slip away from their hands as they failed to close the game.

“There has been a belief whole day that they can get the job done. It was a sensational run chase,” Broad told Sky Sports. “Ben Duckett was absolutely outstanding, but it’s just incredible how this team keeps doing it. 371 to win a match on Day 5 pitch, done quite calmly, done to the plan, huge amount of skill on show. Wonderful feeling when you win a  Test match like that.

“In reality, England probably should have lost that match if you look at the whole five days. India had so many opportunities to put this game to bed, but England just scrapped and fought hard for the four days and showed their best today.”