How will India cope without Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli? That was the overriding point of discussion in the entire build-up to the England Test series. The general consensus was that the Indian batting lineup lacked the experience to deal with English conditions, and that it would be entirely up to Jasprit Bumrah to keep Shubman Gill’s team alive in the Test series. That may well happen even now, but what we saw on Friday on the first day of the first Test at Headingley was that things are probably far brighter than we thought it was. If we look back to the last two Test series against New Zealand at home and Australia away — which India lost 0-3 and 1-3 respectively — to subsequently miss out on a WTC final spot, we will see that the weak links in the batting lineup were Kohli and Rohit. Against Australia, Kohli aggregated 190 in nine innings (including a 100 in the first Test). He managed 93 from six innings against New Zealand. Rohit’s Australia aggregate was 31 off five innings, while against the Kiwis he scored 91 off six innings. With the No. 1 and No. 4 in such wretched form for such a long time, it meant that the onus was on the rest of the batters to deliver, and they often seemed to be buckling under all that pressure.
On Friday, it seemed India were suddenly free of the “baggage”, something captain Gill had hinted on Thursday on the eve of the Test match. The opening partnership of KL Rahul and Yashasvi Jaiswal showed the discipline that we haven’t seen in recent times with Rohit around. The Mumbai right hander, towards the back-end of his Test career, had completely lost the trust in his defence and was always looking to hit out of trouble, which often proved counter-productive. That was precisely the thing that Jaiswal and Rahul didn’t do on Friday, as they put on 91 runs for the first wicket. The duo was ready to wait and chose the right balls to hit, something that the Indian team sorely missed at the top of the order for a while. While Jaiswal and Rahul left enough evidence that we wouldn’t be missing Rohit too much in this format, Gill at No. 4 showed that he was capable of picking up from where Kohli left off.Quiz: Who’s that IPL player? Just as Kohli, 12 years ago, took over from Sachin Tendulkar in South Africa and did not allow India to feel the Little Master’s absence, it was Gill’s turn to bring that sense of assurance that the Indian middle-order has been so sorely lacking of late. Gill didn’t try to be the compulsive front-foot player that made things slightly difficult for Virat towards the back end of his Test career. The new captain was ready to play late — a crucial old-school method of being successful in England — a rule book that had been discarded by Kohli after his struggles against James Anderson back in 2014. The entire story, though, hasn’t been written yet. It’s a long series and there will be ups and downs on the way. The onus is on Gill and his band of young warriors to prove that they are ready to take the battle forward for a new Indian team.
