IND vs ENG: Gill gets Aussie great Ponting's backing for Lord's Test aggression

Former Australia skipper Ricky Ponting has backed India Test captain Shubman Gill for his outburst on day 3 in Lord's Test against England batter Zak Crawley. Gill, out of character, had a bit of heated exchange with Crawley when the England batter decided to use some extra time before facing the bowler in the dying moments of the day. While many called the behaviour from Gill a copy of former Test skipper Virat Kohli, Ponting said it was the ‘captain standing up for the team.’

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“That's the captain standing up for his team, that's a captain really wanting to show that it's his team now and this is the way that we're going to play the game, and also, I guess, wanting to give a little bit back,” Ponting was quoted as saying by the ICC Digital. “I think that's him starting to put his stamp on his team. And a lot like Virat (Kohli) did, similar ways like that. Rohit (Sharma) probably was never as outwardly aggressive, I guess, especially to opposition players. I know he (Rohit) would quite often get aggressive with his teammates and try to bring the best out of them that way. But I love watching Shubman stand up for what he thought was right in the game last week,” he added.

The fourth Test of the series is set to played in Manchester from Wednesday (Jul 23) and India, trailing 1-2 in the series, are dealing with a lot of injuries to key players. Edgbaston Test hero, the one India won, Akash Deep has been ruled out and so is all-rounder Nitish Reddy. Wicketkeeper-batter Rishabh Pant is also under injury cloud as far as keeping wickets is concerned. Premier pacer Jasprit Bumrah, meanwhile, has been confirmed to play in the Test.