CHENNAI: Shubman Gill, the first India Test captain from Punjab since Bishan Singh Bedi (1976-78), will usher Indian cricket into a new era in true sense. Unlike Bedi, who though was born in Amritsar but played domestic cricket for Delhi, Gill, in fact, will be the first from the northern state to have represented Punjab in age group cricket before being made the captain in the longest format of the game.
With the England tour, Gill, who doesn't hail from a cricketing power centre, is set to lead a squad of 18 mostly comprising players like him. Among the players chosen for the five-Test series starting June 20, only five were born in metro cities like Chennai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad, considered hubs of Indian cricket.
It can be argued that Rishabh Pant and Yashasvi Jaiswal represent Delhi and Mumbai, the two cities known for their cricketing culture, respectively in the domestic circuit but even they shifted their base like Bedi to pursue the game. Pant was born in Haridwar, Uttarakhand while Jaiswal's birth place is Bhadohi in Uttar Pradesh. Similarly, Shardul Thakur, who is making a comeback into the Test side, plies his trade for domestic heavyweights Mumbai but he was born in Palghar, a town in the Konkan division of Maharashtra.
In the last 25 years, it was MS Dhoni from Ranchi, Jharkhand, who set the trend when he took over the Test captaincy from Bengaluru-born Anil Kumble. Before Kumble, Rahul Dravid and Sourav Ganguly led the side since the turn of the century. In fact, Dravid was also born in Indore, Madhya Pradesh but shifted his base to Bengaluru, Karnataka. The 25-year-old Gill will succeed Mumbai's Rohit Sharma, who in turn took the mantle from Delhi's Virat Kohli.
As many as three players selected in the squad were born in Uttar Pradesh — Yashasvi, Dhruv Jurel and Kuldeep Yadav while the birth state of two is Uttarakhand — Pant and Abhimanyu Easwaran. A couple of them were born in Gujarat — Jasprit Bumrah (Ahmedabad) and Ravindra Jadeja (Nawagam-Kher, Saurashtra). Besides, six were born in states like Punjab (Gill), Rajasthan (Karun Nair). Maharashtra (Thakur), Bihar (Akash Deep), Madhya Pradesh (Arshdeep Singh) and Andhra Pradesh (Nitish Kumar Reddy).
It cannot be denied most of these cricketers born in hinterlands, at some point of time, headed to big centres like Mumbai, Delhi or Bengaluru to hone their skills further. But, at the same time, the paradigm switch clearly points towards a trend — players from non-metro cities making their mark at national and international levels — which in turn can augur well for Indian cricket.
India's Squad for Test tour of England: Shubman Gill (captain), Rishabh Pant (vice-captain), Yashasvi Jaiswal, KL Rahul, B Sai Sudharsan, Abhimanyu Easwaran, Karun Nair, Nitish Kumar Reddy, Ravindra Jadeja, Dhurv Jurel, Washington Sundar, Shardul Thakur, Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Siraj, Prasidh Krishna, Akash Deep, Arshdeep Singh and Kuldeep Yadav.
