Former England skipper showers praise on Shubman Gill, calls him blend of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma

India’s new Test captain Shubman Gill is a mixture of star players Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli but he will be “very much his own man” in the middle when he leads the national side in the eagerly-awaited five-Test series against England starting on Friday, feels Jos Buttler.

Buttler, the former England limited-overs captain who played under Gill in this year’s IPL, said the 25-year-old will need to find a balance between his captaincy role and his own batting.

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“He’s a really impressive player and an impressive young man. He’s pretty calm and measured when he speaks, but (it’s) interesting, I feel like on the field he’s got a bit of fight about him; a bit of intensity, quite passionate. I think he’ll be a mix of Kohli and Rohit.” Buttler said on his podcast ‘For The Love of Cricket’ alongside former England pacer Stuart Broad.

“Kohli (was) that sort of real aggressive (character), really transformed the Indian team, in your face, up for the contest. Rohit was a bit on the other side, a bit more laid back, very cool, calm, collected customer, but with that sort of fight,” he added.

Buttler expects Gill to “be a bit in the middle. He’s obviously learned from those two guys… but he’ll be very much his own man.”

Buttler also highlighted that the job of captaining India in Test cricket is like being a “third or fourth-most influential people” in the country

“He talked about compartmentalising batting and captaining; so when he’s batting he just wants to be a batter, and then he will try and work on his captaincy and try and separate the two roles,” he said.

“I don’t think we can quite understand the level of interest and the stardom that these guys have. You see it around the IPL, you’re aware of it, but actually living that yourself… I think they say the Indian Test captain is like the third or fourth-most influential person in India, behind the Prime Minister, so you really are put up on that pedestal.

“(There are a) one-and-half billion people, all cricket-mad, so it’s going to be a huge job for him. Kohli is the king, Shubman is the prince: that’s the narrative that they spin out there, and I feel that he’s the coming man…Stepping into that No. 4, it’s big shoes, isn’t it?.