Shubman Gill-led 'brat pack' solves India's 'Who after Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma' concern with Dharamsala show

Who next? That’s always been one of the biggest talking points in world sport. Who next after Jesse Owens, for instance. Or Muhammad Ali. Michael Johnson and Carl Lewis, Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert and Steffi Graf, Bjorn Borg and Michael Schumacher and Tiger Woods and Mike Tyson, Michael Jordan and Roger Federer… You get the drift, right?

Who next is a question that has gripped successive generations of Indian cricket fans. Who after Sunil Gavaskar, for instance. Kapil Dev. Anil Kumble. The Golden Generation of Indian batting, the Tendulkars and the Sehwags, the Dravids and the Laxmans. In the last few years, it’s been who after Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma, still plying their wares, and Cheteshwar Pujara and Ajinkya Rahane, no longer on the Test landscape.

We know now, don’t we? Over the last six weeks, a host of 20-somethings have put their hand up, Test status conferred upon them as much due to the sequence of events as anything else. In this period, the Test series against England, the contours of the future of Indian Test batting have taken early, tenuous shape. That shape isn’t amorphous or bland; it’s neo-modern, but also steeped in ancient values.

Yashasvi Jaiswal. Sarfaraz Khan. Devdutt Padikkal. Dhruv Jurel. The last three made their debuts against Ben Stokes’ side, Jaiswal had four Test caps before the start of the series in Hyderabad. At different times in the last four and a half Tests, sometimes on their own, sometimes together, they have opened the door to a world of exciting possibilities. And these aren’t the only ones.

There is Shubman Gill, a semi-seasoned pro who played his first Test three years back. There is KL Rahul, who has already led the national team in all three formats and has featured in 50 Tests. And who can forget the effervescent Rishabh Pant, taking more than baby steps in his journey to return to play after the terrible accident of December 2022 that could have been so much worse?

Jaiswal has been the breakout batting star this series. Having begun his career in the Caribbean with a daddy hundred, he has amassed more than 700 runs against the English, including successive double centuries in Visakhapatnam and Rajkot. His appetite is evident from the fact that he has scored in excess of fifty at least once in each of the five Tests.

Sarfaraz, with a mountain of first-class runs against his name, finally broke through in Rajkot with Kohli unavailable, Rahul injured and Shreyas Iyer, temporarily out of favour, dumped on grounds of form. He immediately showed how much at home he is in the Test arena, emulating Gavaskar, among others, with twin fifties in his maiden Test.

Jurel was the beneficiary of Pant’s misfortune, Ishan Kishan’s indiscipline and KS Bharat’s inability to grab his chances. He has been very good behind the stumps and excellent in front of it; few stumpers have won the Player of the Match award in only their second Test. Jurel’s brilliance with the bat in Ranchi under pressure in both innings earned him that honour.

Padikkal is the latest to reveal his hand in the red-ball crucible. He got a go almost by accident, following an injury to Rajat Patidar – the only ‘young’ batter (he is 30) not to translate promise and domestic runs into Test contributions – a day before the Dharamsala encounter. Padikkal has had a difficult couple of years, an intestinal issue threatening to derail his career, but showing stomach for battle, he has worked his way back among massive runs and provided a glimpse of the talent that nestles in his wiry frame with a subliminal half-century on Friday.

Gill, of course, is the leader of this ‘brat pack’, if you like. He has already made a name for himself and did his reputation no harm with a second hundred of the series in Dharamsala, clearly the fulcrum of the group going forward.

What’s remarkable about all these batters is that they symbolise today’s cricket, aggressive and fearless, without compromising on the basics integral to success at the highest level. They are adventurous and innovative, but also technically proficient and supremely game aware. The effortlessness with which they fuse the brazen with the pedantic takes one’s breath away. Their intelligent decision-making under pressure stems from solid grounding in domestic and franchise play, and they all are better prepared for the challenges set to confront them than the legends of eras gone by. All told, the promise of an excellent tomorrow isn’t a pipedream. As much as the series win itself, that’s the biggest takeaway from the last six weeks.