AHMEDABAD: In the last week of January 2025, the Narendra Modi Stadium welcomed Coldplay, the award-winning British band. The capacity crowd were treated to two evenings of uplifting music, marked by hope, unity and the need to stick together in an increasingly divisive world marked by fracture, conflict and war.
After an Asia Cup filled with political innuendoes and abundant war metaphors, the two-match Test series between India and West Indies, set to begin at the same Stadium from Thursday, will look to act as a balm for a mind still filled with handshakegates, nationalistic hubris, and celebrations centred around guns going off or fighter jets falling down.
It's also perhaps apt then that the match will begin on the 156th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, whose ideals of peace continue to inspire those who believe in a just and humane world.
The Indian team, of course, will start as favourites, but the cricket itself should be intriguing for a number of reasons.
This will be the first time the hosts will be without any of R Ashwin, Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma for a home season since 2011, when the Tamil Nadu spinner made his debut. Since then, he had been an ever-present in home Tests. It kind of marks not just the end of an era but the beginning of a new one, even though the Indian team experienced the vacuum of playing without any of them in England.
Playing without them in overseas conditions is one thing; taking the field without the last two permanent captains as well as one of India's greatest spinners at home is an entirely different beast.
One of the biggest challenges for Gill and the current team management will be to decide what kind of wickets to play on. Under Kohli, at least under the latter part of his regime, as well as under the majority of Sharma's reign, the Indian management sought to play on spin-friendly surfaces. With World Test Championship points at stake, they understandably wanted to maximise opportunities to win games at home. It worked on a lot of occasions (they did qualify for each of the first two editions of the final of the WTC), but it did backfire spectacularly as well: India's last home series was a 0-3 defeat at the hands of New Zealand.
An equal chance for batters?
When the new captain was asked what brand of cricket they would like to play in India, he said a 'hard, grinding one'. "We are looking to play some hard, grinding cricket," the No. 4 said during the pre-match press conference. "Over the past few years, if you see the Test matches, they haven't got to five days. So what we are looking to do is play some good, hard cricket.
"All the Test matches that we played in England went pretty deep [all five Tests went into the fifth day]. And I think what you can expect from us is good, hard, grinding cricket and we won't be looking for any easy options. And I think we have the skills to dominate in any kind of situation and the kind of talent we have in the team, we can turn around from any situation, so that's what we will be looking to play."
The wickets against New Zealand did favour spin. Even otherwise, decks in India have generally been low, slow with purchase available for the slow bowlers. It has resulted in some below par averages — Gill himself has felt it after returning an average of 26.3 after his first six matches in India before enjoying an uptick in fortunes — but the management were fine with reduced returns for batters as they kept going for wins.
That whole template could change in this cycle. Gill didn't explicitly say it but did suggest that they would like to play on wickets which offers something to both bat and ball. "I can't speak about the conversations before I came, but we would be looking to play on wickets that offer (something) to both the batters and to the bowlers," he said. "But, having said that, any team that comes to India, the challenge is the spin and reverse swing. These are the two things that, if teams can play spin well and if they can challenge the reverse swing, they are going to get good success. So keeping these challenges in mind, you'd be looking to play on wickets that offer (something) to the batters and the bowlers."
Gill himself will have a big role to play in this series even if the calibre of opposition isn't the greatest. The No. 4, apart from KL Rahul up top, is the elder statesman of this batting line-up. In a batting line-up high on quality but low on experience, Gill is the steady hand at the till.
So, how quickly can he switch over from the shortest to the longest format? "For a batter, I don't think it's physical fatigue," he said. It's more mental for a batter. That's a little different for a bowler. As of now, I feel fresh and my body is ready. I am just looking at what I have to do this week and next week and that's how I will be taking my decisions."
With a pitch likely to have a greenish look to it, Gill & Co. may also lean towards playing an extra seamer or a seam-bowling allrounder in the form of Nitish Kumar Reddy. If the spinners don't do it, the hosts can of course deploy Jasprit Bumrah, a cheat code on most surfaces.
If Bumrah does feature, it will be his first time in the Stadium since the night of the Coldplay concert when Chris Martin remarked he was the best pacer in the world.
