New Delhi, July 20 -- For a while, Virat Kohli wasn't missed. Fingers were wagged. Words were exchanged and the final six minutes of Day 3 at Lord's had the feel of a cauldron that was overflowing with emotion. This is how India have played their cricket for a while now. Under Kohli, everyone did it. Under Rohit Sharma, Kohli and Mohammed Siraj did it. But few expected the cool and calm Shubman Gill to exhort Zak Crawley to "grow some f****** balls". It seemed a bit out of character. Usually, Gill's quiet, unflappable air of confidence is way more intimidating than the cuss words he used. But here perhaps the moment got to him and the new captain let his base instincts take over. "I mean, you are giving everything. Mentally, physically, you are giving your everything, and there would be times when there would be a little bit of heat from both sides. I think this is what makes it more exciting and challenging. The next time we play each other, we know there won't be anything easy," Gill told reporters after the match. "At the end of the day, there is a lot of admiration between the two teams. Both teams are trying their best to win the match and perform. There can be moments when there can be some heat. You are just trying to give your best, it can happen in a game of cricket, but this is what makes it so exciting," he added. With both sides accusing the other of time-wasting, the sudden outbreak of tension seemed to ignite a firestorm that got England all charged up for their second innings. When Gill, with over 600 runs to his name in the series already, stepped up to bat in the second innings, the home side let him have it. The same thing would have got Kohli fired up. Gill, however, seemed jittery. As former India cricketer Sanjay Manjrekar said on JioHotstar, "What Virat Kohli did was second nature to him. His cricket and batting used to get enhanced by that." He added: "Shubman Gill, I'm not sure whether this comes naturally to him. If Kohli had come out to bat, he would have looked into the faces of those people and gotten a hundred. But if you looked at Shubman Gill's body language, the man who has almost batted like Bradman - he was so tentative. The way he batted in those nine balls, it seemed like he had gotten a pair." Let it out. Say what is truly on your mind. Don't suppress it. Be yourself. Let them have it... much of the recent chatter around cricket has been about the team management wanting the team to play freely. This mainly means they don't want players to suppress their instincts in the middle. When you start second-guessing yourself, you are lost. And that is why even though former India skipper Rahul Dravid wasn't dishing it out all the time, he still earned the respect of the opposition. It was still aggression but it was directed inwards. As former Australia opener Matthew Hayden once said, "When I look into Rahul Dravid's eyes I know that though he might not be outwardly aggressive, he is inwardly aggressive: he wants to hit the ball, he wants to seek out opportunities. He has got fire in his belly. A lot of the aggression that you see now, like staring and chatting, is all guff. That is just a waste of time." Some believe that in this world, a man must either be an anvil or a hammer. But it doesn't have to be that way and Gill, in that sense, must walk his own path... as leader and as a player. This is not and should not be about how Sourav Ganguly, MS Dhoni or Kohli led. This should be about how Gill wants to lead. Siddharth Kaul, former India and Punjab medium-pacer, has seen a lot of Gill and he feels that Gill wasn't trying to put on a show. "I first saw Shubman Gill closely after he came from the U-19 World Cup win high and was playing for Punjab senior team in the Karnataka State Cricket Association tournament. I was amazed to see his focus, the calmness he had and his will to score freely," said Kaul. "I think what happened in the Lord's Test was very instinctive. The English batters were using delay tactics. Aggression is part of a sportsperson's career. He just expressed himself on the field and I feel it was alright." The purpose of aggression matters - is it just a vent or part of a plan? Kohli, Siraj or even Harbhajan Singh would use it as fuel. For Ganguly, it was a tactic. For some others, a distraction. Some switch on and off - Dale Steyn, for example, was all pumped up while bowling and super chill in person. Former India, Punjab and Railways pacer, Harvinder Singh, who is now director of coaching at the Punjab Cricket Association, feels Gill's father always had eyes on his training and instilled discipline in him. The 25-year-old's elevation to captaincy was a nod not just to his batting potential but his composure as well. "I am happy he did that," said Harvinder. "Also, he is now the captain and has to take charge of things and lead from the front. He is going to have a long career and we will see him expressing himself more as his career progresses. And that's fine." A huge part of successfully using aggression is also knowing when to hold back. Come July 23, when the fourth Test begins, we'll know whether Lord's was just a momentary lapse of reason or a window into something more....