India’s domestic giant Wasim Jaffer has heaped praise on the promising young batsman Prithvi Shaw, as the former opener has described the 20-year-old as a “special talent” who has immense brilliance.
After setting the junior level cricket on fire, Shaw showed a great amount of his talent and made a promising start to his international career, hitting a hundred against the West Indies in Rajkot in his India debut in a Tests series in 2018.
The right-hander, who led India to victory in the ICC U-19 World Cup in 2018, has so far played 4 Tests and 3 ODIs and scored 335 and 84 runs respectively for India before being hit by an injury during Australia tour and later banned for a doping violation after IPL 2019.
And Jaffer was disappointed the way Shaw's career panned out so far as well as the incidents in the young gun’s international career and suggested him to be disciplined if he wants to achieve great things.
Wasim told AFP, “He is a special talent and I am a little disappointed with the way things have taken its course after his ankle injury and then his ban for using the banned substance. Seeing all this troubles me, because he is very, very talented. But he needs to be disciplined if he wants to achieve great things.”
He added, “He is living in that Indian circle where he has got role models like Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma, Shikhar Dhawan who are so disciplined. There is much competition and he missed so many Tests and internationals and does not need to do that because this is his time to fulfill his potential.”
Citing Kohli's example, the former cricketer said Shaw – who made headlines after he smashed a record 546 off 330 balls in a 2013 school competition at 14 and since then has been compared with Sachin Tendulkar, should be ready to take the pressure of playing at the highest stage while keeping himself grounded.
Jaffer signed off by saying, “Whenever you perform at the top level, the media and the people hype you so much, but it is an individual's responsibility to learn. Virat keeps himself grounded. Every rising batsman in Mumbai circles is right away compared to Tendulkar. Everything boils down to performance.”
(With AFP Inputs)
