3 reasons why India dropping Shubman Gill for BGT 2024-25 4th Test is the wrong move

Team India made a huge call for the Boxing Day Test against Australia by dropping Shubman Gill from the playing XI. The right-handed batter had to make way for Washington Sundar, as the visitors opted for two spinners, while also choosing to keep a hold of Nitish Kumar Reddy in the side.

Gill had missed the series opener in Perth due to a finger injury. Since then, he mustered a couple of starts in Adelaide before an early dismissal at The Gabba.

"The series is 1-1, a lot to play for, it gives us a perfect opportunity to show what we are as a team. Whatever situation lies in front of you, you have to fight. It's a new day and we are looking forward to it. We have one change - Gill misses out and Washington comes in," Team India skipper Rohit Sharma said at the toss (via Cricbuzz).

On that note, let us look at three reasons why India dropping Shubman Gill for BGT 2024-25 4th Test is the wrong move.

#1 Gill would have fared well in the middle-order in comparatively better conditions

The entire tour was apparently designed in a fashion to rattle the Indian batters in the first half of the series. While it backfired to a degree on the Australian batters too, the Indian batters were affected. Barring KL Rahul, no Indian batter enjoyed a consistent run across Perth, Adelaide (pink ball), and Perth.

However, Melbourne and Sydney were supposed to be the rewards for the batter for surviving the testing surfaces in the first half of the campaign. However, Gill has cruelly been axed on the basis of one poor innings, where the rest of his peers more or less struggled.

The decision to take Gill out of No. 3 had some merit behind it given India needed more solidity at the top, but his exclusion is a contentious call. He might have been the answer to India's short-term middle-order fix. With better conditions expected in Melbourne, at least compared to the ones earlier in the series, he could have played his positive style of play alongside Rishabh Pant against tired bowlers and the softball.

#2 Having six bowling options when batting is fragile throws away the balance

The decision to drop Gill was to accommodate the second spinner, which in itself is a questionable call, but to see that the batter could not make it over newbie Nitish Kumar Reddy was shocking, to say the least.

Despite the all-rounder's brilliant series so far, Gill is one of India's best players in the side, setting current form aside. More than Nitish Kumar Reddy's all-round ability, it is his batting that has helped him retain his place in the side.

Technically India have six bowling options, and it is not as if one of those is Prasidh Krishna or Harshit Rana, who could have realistically eased Bumrah's workload. With three of those six bowling options being all-rounders, it does not exactly beef up the bowling depth and certainly does not help an ailing batting unit either. With this particular combination, India are arguably stuck in the middle.

#3 India needed as many specialist batters as possible

At the time of a batting crisis, it is natural for teams to panic and go for form over skill. Nitish Kumar Reddy is unlikely to chip in too much with the ball, since he is technically the sixth bowler in the setup, and has bowled only 27 overs in three Tests.

In the end, it came down to Reddy and Gill's batting, and the one that could offer more was selected. However, there is a bit of recency bias that has hurt Gill in this scenario. Reddy chipped in with some crucial knocks on testing pitches, but now with a better pitch on offer, India needed someone who could put in longer shifts at the crease.

Temperament is an area that Gill has struggled with recently but is one that he is also capable of improving. When conditions are good for batting, the batter has proved that he can score runs at a healthy rate and stretch the total, which is exactly what India needed. While Reddy might be capable of doing that, the visitors now have to wait and wonder, while they had the ideal candidate in Gill all this time.