How captains Virat Kohli & Rohit Sharma inspired Shubman Gill? India's newest Test skipper reveals major learnings

The month of June will kickstart a new era in Indian cricket. While it marks the start for India in the 2025-27 cycle of World Test Championship, but also under a new leader in Shubman Gill following the retirements of legends Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli recently.

Having made his Test debut in 2020 in Australia, Gill has come a long way in the last five years to rise to the ranks to being appointed as India's new Test captain, starting with a five-match Test series against England, starting from June 20.

With him will be a mix of young and experienced faces, who are looking for an opportunity to prove themselves at the top once again. Gill knows it won't be an easy task to fill in the shoes of Kohli and Rohit. But what he can do is take inspiration from the duo and build a team of his own.

Honestly, both Kohli and Rohit are two different characters on the field with a sole aim to win the game for India. A day after being named as the Indian Test captain, Gill revealed how both Rohit and Kohli are contracting in nature, but yet similar in their styles.

"Virat Bhai was always very aggressive. Always wanting to lead from the front with hunger and passion. Whereas Rohit Bhai was also aggressive, but you might not see that on their reaction or on their expressions, but he was also someone who was always very attacking on the field," Gill told in a video shared by the BCCI.

"Rohit Bhai was someone who was very calm and tactically always very present, and he is very communicative to the players, what he wants from the players. And so these are the qualities that I learned from him," added Gill, who have played both under Gill and Virat.

Gill explains how to separate leadership & batting

Captaincy comes with its own pressure. In his short captaincy stint in the Indian Premier League (IPL) for Gujarat Titans and during a brief stint as a T20I captain for India on tour to Zimbabwe, Gill has learnt the importance of separating batting and leadership and making decisions as a batter while having a bat in his hand.

"If I start thinking about other things, it just puts more pressure on me, which is not required, you know, because when you are batting out there, you want to be able to take those risks. You want to be able to make decisions that you would make when you are playing, just as a batsman, because that gives you the freedom.

"That is one of the things that I learned, that whenever I am batting out there, I just want to be able to make decisions as a batsman, not really want to think that, oh, I am the captain," added Gill.