Shubman Gill reflects on Leeds loss ahead of Edgbaston Test: ‘My learning was…’

India Test captain Shubman Gill reflected on the loss his side faced against England during the 1st Test match at Leeds despite having five centurion in its ranks. Gill noted that the young side played well in many moments of the match but lamented the dropped catches while also noting the major learnings for him as a captain and a player.

Speaking at the pre-match press conference ahead of the Edgbaston test match, Gill said, "We played well in many moments of the match, but in the moments that were not that good, we played very badly. When you play against such a team and you have to make sure that you are doing the right thing and your mistakes are not so bad that you get completely out of the game," Shubman Gill said in the pre-match press conference.

"And on Day 5, we all knew that it wouldn't be that easy, even though there was 350 score on the board. But there was not that much help in the wicket for the bowlers. We had to put in very consistently tight lines, which I think we did very well in the first session."

Gill also stated that the older Duke's ball made run scoring easier and while there was good bowling from his side the lack of wickets made it easier for the home side to score freely on Day 5 of the match.

"We saw with Duke's ball, especially on this ground, that as the ball gets older, it becomes easier to make runs, and if you don't take out the wicket, it becomes very difficult to contain the runs. So we did good bowling, we did consistent bowling, but because we couldn't take wickets, we didn't get half chances," he added.

Talking about the lost chances by the Indian team in 1st Test, Gill said, "We dropped some catches in the whole period. It's not easy when you are constantly dropping catches, especially when the bowlers are creating chances. But I think overall, we had a lot of positives in the last match as well. I think they didn't lose any wickets in 200 runs,"

Shubman Gill's learning from Leeds Test:

Personally taking responsibility for the loss, Gill noted that he could have developed a partnership with Rishabh Pant in the third innings of the match. As a captain, Gill talked about working on containing runs once the Duke ball gets softer.

"I could have had a 50-run worth more partnership out there with Rishabh. That was my learning from when I was batting. And when we were bowling, there were learnings like once the ball gets old and it's getting soft, there isn't much happening. So, how would you contain or how would you control the run flow, especially with the way they bat," Gill noted.