Shubman Gill's stint as India's Test captain began with a five-wicket defeat against England at Headingley, Leeds.

Gill, who was handed the Test captaincy after Rohit Sharma’s retirement last month, slammed a brilliant hundred in his maiden assignment. While he managed to pass the batting test, the loss at Headingley kept him under the scanner.

The Indian bowlers let the team down as the hosts chased down a daunting target of 371 runs to claim a 1-0 lead in the five-match series.

Gill’s captaincy was also labelled as defensive by many, while some experts felt that he lacked authority in his first match as skipper.

Former India cricketer-turned-commentator Sanjay Manjrekar also joined the bandwagon, citing that India would have targeted getting the Englishmen bowled out by Tea on the final day had Virat Kohli been in charge at Headingley.

“Most people felt Shubman Gill went too defensive. But I think he was trying to trap England by cutting off boundaries, hoping the wickets would come eventually,” Manjrekar said on JioHotstar.

“I hate to bring Virat Kohli as a comparison, as Shubman Gill is a young captain, but he would not have put such a defensive field. That’s different from someone like Virat Kohli, who might say: We have enough runs, I’ll get you all out before Tea. Whether he would have gotten wickets with an attacking field is not guaranteed, but he would have been at it.

“Gill doesn’t have the same seam attack as England-though they don’t have Bumrah but English team has more all-round options. Even with Jadeja, I felt India should’ve started with a standard field rather than pre-empting reverse sweeps. You want to start with attacking intent-even if only for a few overs-before going defensive. That said, I don’t want to be overly critical of Shubman. He’s a new captain, and we should be understanding of that,” he added.

India will be eyeing a series-leveling win in the second Test, slated to be held at Edgbaston in Birmingham on July 2.