Sreevats Goswami, who was part of the victorious India U-19 World Cup team under Virat Kohli in 2008, taking to social media, said that a certain visual from India’s training session dropped the possibility of Gill likely to lead the team on Friday in the Sydney Test. He also reckoned it might be the start of a new era in Indian cricket from the next World Test Championship cycle onwards.

The tweet read: “Going by a particular visual , gill to lead India in Sydney test ? So India already looking ahead to the next WTC cycle .This will be interesting . #BorderGavaskarTrophy”

Although Goswami did not refer to which particular visual sparked the speculation in him, it is expected to be that of where Gill is seen having a chant with Gambhir, who pat on his back, before he shook hands with vice-captain Jasprit Bumrah and later joined the slip cordon in a fielding drill.

Will Gill be back in the India XI?

The India No. 3 was benched for the fourth Test against Melbourne last week as captain Rohit decided to open again, forcing in-form KL Rahul to bat one down, while Gill was replaced by a third all-round in Washington Sundar.

Speaking to the media after India’s loss at the MCG, Rohit clarified that Gill missed out on the XI owing to a specific requirement of bowling combinations and batting depth.

“The chat with him was that clearly he was not dropped. We just wanted to have that extra bit of cushion in the bowling and hence we opted for an all-rounder, which shouldn’t weaken our bowling line-up. Compromising a batter for a bowler was not something I wanted to do, we wanted to bat as deep as possible, and along with that have a bowling attack which could take 20 wickets, you know, so we considered everything and we ended up compromising him unfortunately,” Rohit said.

The only possibility for Gill to return is if India drop Rohit from the XI.