England was a good learning curve for Gill, says former NZ star Jesse Ryder

New Delhi, Aug 12 (IANS) Former New Zealand all-rounder Jesse Ryder believes the tour of England has been a great learning curve for India's newly-appointed Test skipper Shubman Gill.

The Indian batter had a remarkable month in July. In the five-match series against England, he piled up 754 runs, including a double hundred and two hundreds across 10 outings at a phenomenal average of 75.40 that also landed him the Player of the Series award. His marathon run tally in the series was the second-highest ever in a WTC tournament. Under his leadership, India fought back from a deficit twice to draw the series 2-2.

In an exclusive conversation with IANS, Ryder sang praises for the immense pool of talent that India has and on how he viewed Gill’s first series as captain.

“There's a lot of talent coming through, especially over here in India. There are so many people here. Shubman Gill is a young fellow. England would have been a good learning curve for him,” Ryder told IANS.

Down 1-2 after the Lord’s Test, India showed incredible resilience to fight back and level the Anderson-Tendulkar series 2-2. On the back of incredible bowling by Mohammed Siraj, who ended the series as the highest wicket-taker with 23 scalps in five Tests, with figures of 4-86 and 5-125 across both innings of the fifth and final Test at The Oval, and that too in the absence of Jasprit Bumrah who sat out of the final game citing workload management.

When asked who he believes to be India’s next star in the making, Ryder chose Yashasvi Jaiswal, who started with a dominating century at Headingley in the opening Test and ended the series with a gritty 118 in the second innings of the deciding match at the Oval. In totality, the left-handed opener scored 411 runs across five games.

“India has got a lot of talent coming through, they’ve got great players like Jaiswal coming through,” he added.

--IANS

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