The biggest question over Virat Kohli’s replacement in Tests has been answered by India’s newly-appointed vice-captain Rishabh Pant.
Ahead of the first Test against England in Leeds, Pant said that newly-appointed Test captain Shubman Gill will be batting No.4 which was a batting position chiefly reserved for Kohli for the last 13 years.
Kohli had announced his retirement in the middle of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025, bringing an end to a storied career in Test whites. Kohli stopped 770 short of 10,000 Test runs from his 123 Test matches in which he scored 30 hundreds and 31 fifties.
Pant also confirmed that he will continue playing in his favoured No.5 position while the crucial No.3 position is being discussed within the team.
Karun Nair, Sai Sudharsan and Abhimanyu Easwaran, who can all bat in the top-order are probable candidates for the role.
Gill has been in incredible form as an opener in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2025 and led Gujarat Titans to the playoffs. Before that, he was elevated to vice-captaincy in ODIs before the Champions Trophy 2025 and is likely to take over from Rohit Sharma who is yet to retire from the 50-over format.
ALSO READ:
Gill has played 32 Tests so far and has never batted No.3 till date. He opened the innings on 25 occasions and played at No. 3 in 30 innings. The 25-year-old has five hundreds and seven fifties so far.
He will have to fill a big void left by Kohli who has scored 7,564 runs from 98 Tests at No.4 which also includes seven double centuries,19 hundreds and 21 fifties.
India have a long list of top-order batters in their current squad for the England Test series with KL Rahul also capable of batting at No.3. Rahul had paired with Yashasvi Jaiswal at the top in four of the five Tests in the Border-Gavaskar Trophy.
England’s pace reserves have been depleted before the first Test in Headingley as they don’t have Jofra Archer, Mark Wood, Gus Atkinson and Olly Stone while Josh Tongue was also suffered a minor injury during the second four-day match between India A and England Lions in Northampton.
The first Test at Headingley will begin on Friday.
For more updates, follow CricXtasy on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Telegram, and YouTube.
