INDvAUS: Enter Shubman Gill the captain as spotlight stays on Big Two

It’s been an year of seismic changes in Indian cricket – with yet another chapter unfolding at the Optus Stadium in Perth on Sunday. From a top order batter who had to be dropped for the Boxing Day Test of the last Border-Gavaskar Trophy owing to team composition, Shubman Gill has come a long way in the last 10 months to lead the fortunes of Men in Blue as the new ODI captain.

His face adorns the giant broadcasters’ promo for the three-match ODI series, but the ‘Big Two’ also figure in it in equal measure – and it’s understandable. It’s a series that the Cricket Australia has labelled as a suitable occasion for a send-off to Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma and in a format which they owned for the past decade and more.

While all the obsession may be on whether they are being primed to continue playing till the 2027 ICC World Cup, a more pragmatic way of looking at the contest at hand is to see it as the passing of the mantle from Rohit – one of the finest modern ODI captains – to the 26-year-old Gill.

Unlike the last transition during the Test series in England when both the stalwarts had suddenly retired, their reassuring presence is being felt Down Under for the past couple of days and Gill has been handling the situation adroitly so far.

Having survived the baptism by fire in England beyond imagination – where his aggregate of 754 runs had overshadowed any possible shortcomings in leadership – Gill is now more sure of himself as head coach Gautam Gambhir has pledged that he will have the captain’s back. The new captain, on his part, said he would be ready and willing to pick the brains of both the former captains in the dugout.

If there is one advantage that Gill has in this format is unlike the red ball cricket, he had been an understudy of Rohit here – albeit for a brief period including a successful ICC Champions Trophy campaign and the later had assigned him the task of managing and giving the bowlers inputs from time to time.

There are no prizes for guessing that that when Gill posed with Mitchell Marsh, his counterpart, and the winners’ trophy on the banks of the Swan river – he had prepped himself well for the obvious question.  ‘’A narrative is run on the outside but nothing has changed in my relationship with Rohit. He is very helpful whenever I feel I need to ask him anything, may be input on nature of the track,’’ Gill told the media on the eve of the series-opener.

‘’I go and ask, 'what do you think? If you would have been leading, what would you do?' I have great equation with Virat bhai and Rohit bhai and they never hesitate in giving suggestions,’’ Gill said, clearing the air about the misconception that the two seniors haven’t taken the decision well.

When Gill candidly admitted that these are ‘’big shoes to fill’, he was spot-on. The feeling of the duo keeping an eye on your next move can be an unnerving one and for all the right noises that the new captain has made, there will be a new power axis now with the captain-coach on one side and the sheer weight of achievements and experience on another. Any small discordant behaviour on anyone’s part, magnified often without substance by the social media, may foment trouble but Gill is fast acquiring the art of handling it.

The focus will then be as much on Gill as the two stalwarts and the captain has already devised a plan on how to compartmentalise his roles between batting – where he would be opening the innings with the ‘Hitman’ and captaincy. ‘’As a batter, I try not to think like a skipper as then you take more pressure on yourself and you might end up losing freedom of playing your shots and lose the X factor,’’ he added.

 Catch the match

 Australia vs India

 First ODI, Optus Stadium (Perth)

 Start: 9 am IST