India’s Tour of England, which starts on June 20, is the beginning of the new World Test Championship cycle. However, the Indian cricket team will be without Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma. The series, under new captain Shubman Gill, will try to do well. Former Australia captain and current Punjab Kings coach Ricky Ponting shared his views on this.

“I think (Sai) Sudarshan and (Yashasvi) Jaiswal will open the batting (in England) as Sudarshan just looks like a class player to me and technically I think he could do well at Test level,” Ponting said on ICC Review. “They’ll have two pretty young opening batters, so they might look to go for someone that’s got a bit more experience at No.3.”

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“Whether that’s KL (Rahul) or Karun (Nair) at No.3, and then Shubman might end up being that No.4 player, which will probably make life for him a little bit easier as a captain as well. Not having to be opening or batting at No.3 as a young captain might make it easier. Their top five will probably be Sudarshan, Jaiswal, KL, Gill and Karun Nair for the start of the England series,” he added.

However, Shubman Gill has given the hint that the team management will decide the batting order after India’s Intra-Squad match that starts on June 13 as well.

“We haven’t really decided on the…we still have some time. We will be playing intra squad match and we will be having a 10-day camp in London, so we still have a little bit of time. I think we can decide on the batting order once we go there,” he said.

“When I came to know, there was an opportunity to captain the Test team, it was overwhelming. Having said that It’s a big responsibility. Looking forward to this great challenge that will be presented to us,” Shubman Gill again said before departing for England.