With Indian opener Prithvi Shaw’s horrible batting form continuing in Australia, former India captain Mohammed Azharuddin advised the youngster to tighten his defence if he wants to be a successful opener and keep his place in the national team.
Azharuddin believes that Shaw has “enormous talent but his game is free-flowing” while suggesting him to be patient at the start before trying to play his strokes in order to stay on the crease for long.
His comments came after the 21-year-old registered scores of 0 and 4 in the first and second innings respectively in the first Day-Night Test of the four-Test series against Australia in Adelaide.
Following a poor IPL 2020 campaign, Shaw's dreadful form with the bat continued in Australia as well, as the Mumbai lad scored a duck in the first innings while he survived only four deliveries in the 2nd innings before being cleaned up by Pat Cummins for just four runs.
Visibly, the youngster left a significant gap between his pad and bat and that was enough for Australia’s Mitchell Starc and Cummins to run through the gate to dismiss the opener bowled on both occasions in the first Test match of the Border-Gavaskar Trophy in Adelaide.
Well, Shaw’s streak of failures with the bat has raised serious doubts over his future with Team India as his woeful form may cost him his place in the second Boxing Day Test starting from December 26 at the MCG with Shubman Gill and KL Rahul eagerly waiting to break into the XI.
Azharuddin told Sportstar: “No matter how great a batsman you are, as an opener, you have to have a solid defence, while facing quality Australian bowlers. He has enormous talent but his game is free-flowing, and there will be days when he can rip apart opponents.”
He continued, “But that won’t happen every day. As an opener, the basic job is to take the shine off the new ball. Even if you don’t score too many runs, it is important that you be patient and try to stay at the crease for long. That way, you gain confidence and once you are settled, you can play your strokes. That’s how you score runs. You cannot be impatient at the highest level.”
Azhar signed off, “I hope that somebody in the team management tells him that he needs to tighten his defence. You can’t play a similar attacking game that you played against the West Indies two years ago, because you are playing pink ball after a long time, so it is anyway challenging. So you need to focus.”
