New Delhi: Prithvi Shaw voiced his bewilderment on Tuesday evening over being left out of Mumbai’s squad for the first three matches of the forthcoming Vijay Hazare Trophy. He referenced his List-A scores, and with a touch of irony, pointed out that despite having outstanding stats, apparently he’s still “not up to the mark.”
Shaw, a young cricketer of 25, expressed his unwavering determination to re-emerge from setbacks and to prove his worth to those who doubted him. Looking back at his List-A run in Mumbai, Prithvi Shaw has shown his prowess in 65 matches, where he stacked up a total of 3,399 runs. With an average score of 55.7 and striking at a rate of 125.8, he’s made quite an impression. Shaw’s track record speaks volumes with 10 centuries and 14 fifties under his belt in this category.
“Tell me God, what more do I have to see, if 65 innings, 3399 runs at an average of 55.7 with a strike rate of 126, I’m not good enough but I will keep my faith in you and hopefully people believe me in still, cause I will come back for sure. OM SAI RAM,” Prithvi Shaw wrote on his Instagram Stories.
Prithvi Shaw’s circumstance has seen a notable downfall. Merely two months ago, he found himself out of the initial Mumbai team for the Ranji Trophy due to fitness and discipline queries. After putting efforts to overcome these problems, he seized a position in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy’s Mumbai squad. However, despite the team’s triumphant title achievement, Shaw could only score 197 runs in a good sum of 9 matches, making an average of just 21.88. His standout performance came in the quarterfinal against Vidarbha, but it was not enough to shake off the concerns.
The tournament witnessed him falling short once again in the finale, with him scoring disappointingly low – just 8 and 10 in his closing games against Baroda and Madhya Pradesh. Adding to his misfortunes, last month, despite being put up for bidding twice at a base price of INR 75 lakh, Shaw remained unpurchased in the extravagant Indian Premier League (IPL) mega auction.
Pravin Amre, once an assistant coach for Delhi Capitals, had a chat with Times of India about his experience with Shaw. Recalling the 2024 IPL season, Shaw’s performance was notably low, garnering only 198 runs with an average of 24.75 and a single fifty to his record. Not to mention, he was out of play for six games as well.
“I was there in the management when we backed him, but I was also there in the decision-making group, which dropped him due to indiscipline…I hope he takes this IPL auction snub positively. It’s an eye-opener for him,” Amre had said after Shaw went unsold.
After triumphant in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, Shreyas Iyer openly discussed Shaw’s show, strongly declaring that there’s no room for ‘coddling’ anyone in the team since all of them are tried-and-true professionals.
“We can’t babysit anyone, right? Every professional who is playing at this level, they need to know what they should be doing. And he has also done it in the past. It’s not that he hasn’t. He has to focus. He has to sit back, put a thinking cap on and then figure out himself. He will get the answer. No one can force him to do anything,” said Shreyas.
Shaw has had the opportunity to represent India in five Test matches, six ODIs, and a single T20 international, amassing a total of 528 runs across all these formats. The latest time we saw him donning the Indian jersey was in a T20I game against Sri Lanka back in July 2021.
