Shubman Gill withdrawn from India A squad, BCCI wants captain fresh; sacked fielding coach T Dilip back: Report

India’s newest Test captain, Shubman Gill‘s start of the England tour may not go as planned. Gill has reportedly been pulled out of the India A squad that is slated to play England Lions at Northampton on June 6. Earlier, the Ajit Agarkar-led BCCI senior selection committee had announced that Gill and his IPL teammate Sai Sudharsan would join the India A squad for the second warm-up game. But now that Gujarat Titans, the team Gill leads in the IPL, have qualified for the playoffs this season, the board does not want to go on a last-minute dash and rush Gill for a warm-up match before he leads into the transition phase in the five-Test series starting June 20.

The idea of naming Gill for the second India A vs England Lions unofficial test was to give him the opportunity to get acclimatised with the conditions before the Test series, but now, the management has decided not to wear out their captain before the start of a series. The Indian Express reported that the selection committee and head coach Gautam Gambhir have decided to give Gill “rest” after a gruelling season of the IPL.

Besides, Gill will get the chance to play an intra-squad warm-up game starting June 13 to prepare for the Test series, even if he doesn’t feature for India A.

It is believed that the decision to pull Gill out of the India A squad was taken before RCB beat LSG in a high-scoring encounter in the last league game of IPL 2025 at Ekana Stadium in Lucknow to leapfrog GT into the second place on the league table. The results in the last few league fixtures altered the standings and pushed GT to the third spot. The Gill-led side will now play five-time champions Mumbai Indians in the Eliminator at Mullanur on May 30 (Friday). If they win, they will play in Qualifier 2 in Ahmedabad on June 1 against the winner of the RCB vs PBKS match.

With GT still having a pretty good chance of making it to the IPL playoff final (June 3), it would have been a scramble to rush before the start of the second India A vs England Lions match.

It will be interesting to see if the selectors take a similar call for Sai Sudharsan, who is also an integral part of the GT top-order and was supposed to join the India A squad for the second match.

Assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate, along with coach Hrishikesh Kanitkar, has been given the responsibility of handling the India A side led by Abhimanyu Easwaran. As many as nine members of that squad are part of India’s main Test squad.

“The Indian team management has asked Ten Doeschate to fly to England and assist the India A side. Nine players of India A, coached by former batsman Hrishikesh Kanitkar, are part of the Indian Test team, and will look to get acclimated to the conditions before the first Test on June 20 at Leeds,” the report added.

T Dlip back as India’s fielding coach

In another important development in the Indian team, T Dilip has been reinstated as India’s fielding coach for the upcoming five-Test series in England, a month after being removed. Dilip has been handed a new one-year contract.

The BCCI had initially explored the option of appointing a foreign fielding coach but couldn’t find a suitable candidate. “We have decided to reappoint Dilip for a year, and he will travel with the Indian team to England,” the report quoted a BCCI official.

A seasoned coach at the National Cricket Academy (NCA) in Bengaluru, Dilip has worked closely with many of India’s current stars, including Shubman Gill and Yashasvi Jaiswal, as well as earlier generations of players. He came into the national setup in late 2021 during the T20 World Cup, having previously been mentored by Mike Young, the former fielding coach of the now-defunct Deccan Chargers.