“It's the right move"- Ricky Ponting on Shubman Gill made test captain over Jasprit Bumrah

Shubman Gill’s India test captaincy era begins on June 20 with the first test against England in Leeds.

The legendary Australian cricketer Ricky Ponting has shared his thoughts on India‘s choice to name Shubman Gill as test captain, as well as his predictions for the team’s top order in the forthcoming series against England and how they will handle having to replace Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, who both recently retired.

A new era of Indian cricket will begin when the team, led by Shubman Gill, plays a five-match ICC World Test Championship (2025-27) series against England. Earlier this month, two of the country’s greatest batsmen, Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli, announced their retirement from the longest format.

Ponting was not surprised that Shubman Gill was given the captaincy instead of more experienced players like Rishabh Pant or Jasprit Bumrah, since the Australian veteran thought the 25-year-old could excel in the position at the test level.

“I actually think it’s the right move. I know there are a lot of other people out there, pundits out there saying they can’t understand why it wasn’t Bumrah and why they have gone to Shubman, but I think it’s pretty simple.

Bumrah’s injuries are holding him back a bit in the last couple of years, and you don’t want that with a captain. You can’t have a captain coming in and missing games here and there, so I think it’s the right decision,” Ponting said in the recent episode of ICC Review.

Ricky Ponting refers to Shubman Gill’s handling of the Gujarat Titans in the IPL while praising his captaincy

Ricky Ponting also stated he loved the way Shubman Gill has handled the Gujarat Titans (GT) in the recent IPL 2025 season. Gill kept the GT franchise at the top of the IPL 2025 points table for the majority of the tournament and even made them qualify for the playoffs as well.

“Now that they’ve made it, it’s one they’ve got to stick with and give him a good crack at it for a long period of time. Even just looking back at the way he’s handled this current GT (Gujarat Titans) team through this IPL, I think leadership sits really well with him.

And the important thing for me with leadership, as well as if you’re a batter and you’re a captain, you have to be scoring runs. And Shubman is doing that in IPL, and I think the timing is right, and I think you’ll have a good captain who’ll make a lot of Test runs going forward,” Ponting added.

The five-test series between England and India begins on June 20 in Leeds.

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