Prithvi Shaw revealed why he doesn’t bat in the nets when things didn’t work in his favour. He said that he constantly trained but didn’t get the results, and hence, he got fed up and said, if it’s not working, he won’t train for a bit.
It’s been a topsy-turvy ride for Shaw, especially in the last eight or nine months. The 21-year-old showed flashes of brilliance in the IPL 2020.
He started off well, scoring 179 runs in the first five matches, which included a couple of excellent 60+ scores. However, his form dipped, and he finished the tournament with a mere 228 from 13 innings and was eventually dropped from the DC starting XI towards the fag end of the tournament. He failed in the first Test in Australia as well as his technical deficiencies were exposed. Shaw was dropped from the Test side.
However, he returned to India and worked hard again. He tweaked his game and technique a little bit. He roared back into form and smashed the bowlers for fun in the Vijay Hazare Trophy 2020-21. The Mumbai-born opener aggregated a record 827 runs at an average of 165.40 which included four tons and a fifty.
After the domestic season and just before the IPL 2021, Delhi Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting revealed something interesting. He said that Shaw doesn’t like to bat in the nets when he is not scoring runs.
“This happened last year when I was scoring big runs, I wanted to keep batting but then came a few games where I didn’t get runs at all.
I kept training but didn’t get the results. So, beyond a point, I got fed up and said ‘if it’s not happening, I will stop training for a bit’. Because it didn’t make sense for me.
I just switched off for a bit and took the backseat. I was so much into it that I would spend two hours batting in the nets but then I didn’t score the runs, I just let go of it for a while. That’s what Ricky [Ponting] sir was talking about,”
Shaw was quoted saying to Harsha Bhogle in a show on Cricbuzz.
Shaw turned things around in IPL 2021. He was one of the reasons why Delhi Capitals were at the top of the table at the halfway mark as the 21-year-old smashed 308 runs averaging 38.50 and striking at 166.48.
