Shubman Gill did not have the smoothest of starts to his ODI captaincy over the last week in Australia, with India losing the series 1-2 and the opener’s bat silenced by the Aussie quicks.

Gill has had a lacklustre run in white-ball cricket this year, despite his blockbuster initiation to Test captaincy in England, where he scored over 750 runs and four centuries. Returning to the T20I set-up for the Asia Cup last month as vice-captain, Gill only aggregated 127 runs in seven outings at a 21.16 average. In the three ODIs in Australia, the 26-year-old only managed scores of 10, 9 and 24.

Former India captain Krishnamachari Srikkanth and batter Mohammed Kaif owed Gill’s pale returns to his immense all-format workload and the pressure of taking over as captain in two formats. Gill has played

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