Jasprit Bumrah or Shubman Gill: Who Will Lead the Indian Test Team on the England Tour?

Who Will Captain India in the England Tests—Jasprit Bumrah or Shubman Gill? Read more on Dynamite News

New Delhi: Suspense over who will be India's next test captain is all set to end later today. The men's selection committee will be conducting a selection meeting at the BCCI headquarters in Mumbai to select the new test captain and name the squad for the upcoming five-test tour of England, reports Dynamite News correspondent.

The Indian team is on the lookout for a new captain since the time Rohit Sharma announced his test retirement. Among the contenders are Shubman Gill and Rishabh Pant. They're the ones leading the race, but reports suggest currently that the former is likely to be the preferred choice.

Jasprit Bumrah, Shubman Gill, Rishabh Pant, and KL Rahul are possible contenders for this top job on the Indian team.

Can there be another dark horse?

Jasprit Bumrah, KL Rahul, and Rishabh Pant were all opinions because the selectors and the head coach of this Indian team, Gautam Gambhir, were pretty clear, and they had even conveyed to Shubman Gill that he is going to lead the Indian team in the next tour of England, for which the Indian team leaves on the 6th of July.

So, Shubman Gill has also been conveyed, and the BCCI and the chief selector, Ajit Agarkar, will formally announce Shubman Gill as the new Indian captain in a couple of hours from now, maybe at 2:00 PM. He's going to address a media briefing in Bombay today.

What factors favor Shubman Gill?

Well, obviously, they needed a new captain. They needed a young captain, but that does not mean that you could question Jasprit Bumrah's credentials because, remember, he led India in the first couple of tests in Australia a few months ago, and he did reasonably well, winning that Perth test and having some incredible performances himself.

So, Jasprit Bumrah was one strong contender, but apparently the selectors and the team management were not too convinced with the fact that he could last that long for a five-test series.

India would play England and Australia regularly in those five-test series. So, the selectors were not sure that Bumrah would be available for those five test matches. For the time being, at least, Shubman Gill is their preferred choice. This is a young team, and the selectors needed a young face to lead new faces on this team.

Jasprit Bumrah should have been an automatic choice, but perhaps his fitness has forced or convinced the selectors to name Shubman Gill as the captain. In fact, Hardik Pandya was appointed as India's white-ball or T20 captain, but just after the T20 World Cup, the selectors named Suryakumar Yadav as your T20 captain.

The choice was obviously because of the fact that they wanted a captain who would be available throughout the year for the team.