Gill wants India to improve fitness ahead of World Cup

 
LONDON: Captain Shubman Gill said ⁠India failed to field their best combination in the one-day series against ​England because of frequent ​injuries to players, a concern the team must address before next year's World Cup.
India were without their premier all-rounder Hardik Pandya and his replacement Nitish Kumar Reddy also missed the tour of England with a quadriceps injury. Seamer Harshit Rana and all-rounder Washington ⁠Sundar also picked up injuries at different stages of the tour ⁠while pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah missed Sunday's decider, which England won by 26 runs to seal a 2-1 series victory.
'If you look at the first squad, we had ‌announced (for the series), from that minimum five ​players did not ⁠play this match,' Gill said after their loss at ​Lord's.
'If one player is injured, you ‌look at playing another combination, two players are injured you look at playing another combination, but if ​after every match some player is missing then somewhere we are missing a trick.
'If you keep the World Cup as the goal where we have to play 11 matches in a row, here we have players not being able ‌to finish a two-to-three-match series.
'So there is some limitation where our players ​are not being able to play continuously, they play one or two ​matches, ‌they ⁠suffer a niggle and then we are forced to play a different combination which we originally did not plan to play ... as a group ​we need improve our fitness.'
England racked up 387-3 against ⁠India's depleted ​attack, while the tourists managed 360-7 in reply.
'Our bowling is a little bit inexperienced,' Gill said.
'We were put under the pump in this match and we didn't respond well. We didn't start well in the powerplay. ​We gave away too many loose balls and then were ​always chasing the game trying to take wickets, create something which didn't happen for us.'