"Don’t want to win in 2-3 days": Shubman Gill takes a dig at Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma over home pitches

India National Cricket Team Test captain Shubman Gill seems to have taken an indirect dig at the former red-ball captains Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli over home pitch tactics.

Shubman Gill emerged out of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli's shadow and said that they don't want to play Test matches of the home season on pitches where games get finished in two to three days.

We have the best four spinners - Shubman Gill

Over the last few years, India have played home Test matches in extreme conditions where the spinners have shown total dominance. The rank turners have led to the matches finishing inside two to three days.

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Both Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli favored the decision to prepare spin-friendly pitches for the home Test season, allowing the likes of Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, and Axar to unleash their beast mode.

To the contrary, the likes of Virat Kohli, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, and Rohit Sharma were severely affected by the rank turners because their performance went down and their Test batting average reduced.

Meanwhile, India seems to have employed a new strategy following the retirements of Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, and under the leadership of Shubman Gill, by refusing to follow the rank turners tactics.

In an interaction on JioHotstar, Shubman Gill bluntly said that they don't want to play Test matches that last 2-3 days and are fully aware of the quality of Indian spinners, who can do well in any kind of surface.

"We don’t want to win in 2–3 days. We know we have the best four spinners—Kuldeep, Jadeja, Axar and Washi. Any team coming to India knows two challenges: spin and reverse swing. We’ll test opposition in both areas, but our focus is good cricket,” said Gill.

It’s been a long time since we’ve been playing on turners - Shubman Gill

India's spin-friendly pitches strategy backfired in 2024 for the first time in decades as a spirited New Zealand side registered a historic 3-0 whitewash, leading to Rohit Sharma & Co. facing utter humiliation.

Talking about that series defeat, Shubman Gill said that they lost because New Zealand had prepared themselves for the rank turners by playing a series in Sri Lanka prior to the matches against India

"It’s been a long time since we’ve been playing on turners. Obviously, other teams also know what we are good at and what we need to work on. On such wickets, if a spinner bowls at 90–95 kph consistently, any batsman in the world will struggle. New Zealand had an advantage because they had played turners in Sri Lanka before coming here. We hadn’t,” said Gill.

India deploy a good pitch for India vs West Indies 1st Test

India National Cricket Team are currently involved in the first Test of the series against the West Indies National Cricket Team at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.

For the series opener, India have deployed a good pitch. It is a red-soil surface that offered pacers a bit of swing early on and some reverse swing later on. Also, spinners got good help from the surface.

Meanwhile, Shubman Gill further said that they remain focused mainly on winning every series they play instead of looking at the bigger picture - the ICC World Test Championship Final.

“We talk more about winning every series than WTC. But yes, if such a strong team doesn’t qualify, it would be disappointing,” said Gill.

Also Read: Watch: Jasprit Bumrah turns executioner; castles Justin Greaves, Johann Layne with deadly yorkers in 1st Test