"You're going to have to wait until August" - Shubman Gill's cheeky reply to Bazball query ahead of ENG vs IND 2025 series [Watch]

Team India captain Shubman Gill came up with a cheeky reply to a query around Bazball at a press conference ahead of the first Test against England at Headingley in Leeds, which begins on Friday, June 20. Bazball is a term coined to describe England's aggressive approach to Test cricket under the Ben Stokes-Brendon McCullum captain-coach combination.

Gill was appointed Team India's new Test captain after Rohit Sharma announced his retirement from the red-ball format last month. A few days later Virat Kohli also followed suit. Earlier, veteran off spinner Ravichandran Ashwin had also announced his international retirement during the tour of Australia. As a result, India have arrived in England with a rather young squad.

At a press conference on Thursday, Gill was asked about the style of play that would be on display under his captaincy during the Test series and whether they would be inspired by Bazball's success. With the smile, the Indian captain replied:

"I think you’re going to have to wait till August to see what kind of style is that going to be."

The 25-year-old, however, admitted that England have been playing an exciting and result-oriented brand of Test cricket over the last couple of years. He added:

"They have been playing very exciting brand of cricket. They’ve been wanting to get results - that’s what the approach has been from what we know when we played against them. As a team, whenever you are playing you want to be able to get results. It wouldn’t be any different from us as well. We also play to get results."

England chased down 378 with seven wickets in hand the last time they met India in a home Test in Birmingham in July 2022. Joe Root and Jonny Bairstow struck unbeaten hundreds in England's thumping victory.

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"We don’t have any baggage coming to England" - Shubman Gill on positives of a young team

A number of critics have backed England to win the five-match Test series against India comprehensively. Most of them reckon that the visitors' inexperience would be a clinching factor in the series. Gill, however, prefers to look at the positives. The Indian captain asserted:

"I don’t think we would be looking at that to be honest. We are all very motivated. Lot of people talk that our side is not very experienced, but there are also positives - we don’t have any baggage coming to England. That could be one thing that really makes a difference for us."

India went down to Australia 3-1 during their previous Test assignment Down Under. Before that, they suffered a 3-0 loss to New Zealand in India - their first Test whitewash at home in a series of three or more matches.

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Edited by Renin Wilben Albert