The BCCI on Saturday (May 24) announced an 18-member squad for the upcoming five-Test tour of England, with 25-year-old Shubman Gill named as the new captain.

Gill was handed captaincy ahead of Jasprit Bumrah, who had already led India in three Tests, including two matches during the Border-Gavaskar Trophy 2024/25.

Wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant was assigned the vice-captaincy role on the tour of England that will mark the beginning of a new chapter for Indian Test cricket following the recent retirements of veteran batters -- Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli.

The selectors’ decision, however, has sparked a debate with many of them also arguing that Shubman doesn’t even deserve a place in India’s Test XI.

Speaking to Cricbuzz, former India cricketer Manoj Tiwary reckoned the selectors had gone for the second-best option in Gill amid the uncertainty over Bumrah’s fitness and workload management concerns.

“He was the second-best option. But how can someone who doesn't even fit in the Playing XI be made captain? So I feel the logic here was that they looked at who the second-best option was, and that was Gill, and that is how it happened,” Tiwary said.

Ex-India opener Virender Sehwag, who was also part of the panel, endorsed selectors’ decision to not give the leadership responsibility to Bumrah. However, he disagreed with Tiwary, saying that Rishabh Pant was the second-best option and not Gill.

“For a series, Bumrah is okay. But as a long-term option, you need to ask if India play 10 Tests in a year, will he be able to play all those matches? Or, how many matches can he play? That is a major factor in picking a captain. So that I feel was the right decision, because they felt they could not put that pressure and load on Bumrah. Tiwary said Gill is the second-best, but I feel that is Rishabh Pant, and Gill is the third-best,” Sehwag stated.

According to Sehwag, Pant is the only other cricketer apart from Kohli, who has made Test cricket appealing to modern-day spectators.

With his elevation to vice-captaincy, Sehwag believes there is a chance of Pant being made the captain in the future.

“What Pant did for Test cricket, no other player has done. After Virat Kohli, if there is one player who has compelled fans into watching Test cricket, it's Pant. But because he had that accident, got injured and then came back, he did not have that much of an impact, and hence he was made the vice-captain, thinking that if he can bounce back to form, they can take that decision of making him the captain in the future. But there are very few bowlers who are made the captain. In my career, it was just Anil Kumble, who loved the format, was available and was a certainty in the XI,” Sehwag remarked.