Gill's Captaincy Compared to Kohli, Sharma: Hussain Notes India's "Reactive" Approach After Test Loss

Former England captain Nasser Hussain has offered his analysis of India's recent Test match defeat in Leeds, echoing Ravi Shastri's commentary on Shubman Gill's captaincy and India's search for a seam-bowling all-rounder. Hussain noted the differences in Gill's leadership compared to Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, while also raising concerns about India's slip catching and lower-order batting collapses, which contributed to England's five-wicket victory.

The Leeds Test marked Gill's first outing as captain after Rohit Sharma's retirement. England successfully chased down a target of 371, marking their second-highest chase at home against India.

Hussain suggested that Gill's captaincy is still developing and lacks the commanding presence of his predecessors.

"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. I thought he didn't quite have that on-field aura as the names I mentioned there."

He further elaborated, "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 still [have] senior players like Rishabh Pant and KL Rahul [who] 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."

Hussain was also surprised that neither Gill nor any other senior players intervened in Ravindra Jadeja's bowling strategy on Day 5, when the spinner struggled to exploit the rough patches on the pitch.

"A word with Jadeja, maybe as a young captain, to go to such an experienced spinner, and go, you do know the rough is out there... I was surprised that not one of the senior players or captains went to Jadeja and said, Can we go a little bit wider. But Ravi's right, they lost the game for two things that he couldn't control (catches dropped and batting collapse)."

Addressing India's search for a seam-bowling all-rounder, Hussain drew comparisons to past players.

"The slip cordon and the catching were poor, something that India [has] 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 [is] magnificent. Ashwin, Jadeja, Axar Patel. 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."

The team's attempts to find this balance with Nitish Reddy in Australia and Shardul Thakur in Leeds have yet to yield the desired results, highlighted by the batting collapses despite the team recording five centuries during the match.