India’s dramatic collapse on Day 5 of the first Test in Leeds has sparked serious debate around Shubman Gill’s captaincy, with former England cricketers David Lloyd and Alastair Cook offering contrasting views. Despite dominating large parts of the match, India succumbed to a five-wicket loss against England, handing the hosts a 1-0 lead in the Anderson-Tendulkar Trophy series. Gill’s leadership, in his first major Test assignment as captain, came under scrutiny after India’s tactical errors and sloppy fielding proved costly on the final day. David Lloyd, speaking on Sky Sports’ “Stick to Cricket podcast”, was critical of Gill’s approach. “The intrigue is with Shubman Gill, who’s a very inexperienced skipper. How’s he going to come back from that? He’s got Ravindra Jadeja and Karun Nair, who are in their 30s. So he’s got experience in his team. It’s great having a young team that he’s got. But tactically, he’s reactive rather than proactive in the stuff that he’s doing,” Lloyd said.
However, former England captain Alastair Cook urged patience, drawing parallels to Ben Stokes’ early days as skipper. “When you take over a team, there will always be a phase when the team gets used to the new leader. This happened with (Ben) Stokes when he came in. It took a while (for England players) to get used to him when he came in and said, ‘We’re going to try and smash every ball,” Cook replied.
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India’s defeat was particularly surprising given five centuries across both innings — from Rishabh Pant (twice), KL Rahul, Yashasvi Jaiswal, and Gill himself. Still, collapses from 430/3 to 471 and 333/4 to 364, along with dropped catches, allowed England to chase down 371 under clouds with relative ease.
