India opener Prithvi Shaw had a tough time with the bat in 2020. Before the COVID-19 outbreak hit cricket, Shaw toured New Zealand with the Indian team and scored 84 runs from 3 ODIs and 98 runs from 2 Tests.
As the cricket resumed post pandemic, the 21-year-old endured a below-par season in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 for Delhi Capitals (DC) and head coach Ricky Ponting pointed out the shortcomings in his game.
Subsequently, Shaw travelled to Australia but lost his place after the first Test in Adelaide, owing to low scores of 0 and 4. His technique was found out against the in-swinging deliveries and he was eventually axed from the squad for the four-Test series against England at home.
Shaw has since been heavily accumulating runs in domestic cricket for Mumbai. In the ongoing season of Vijay Hazare Trophy, the right-hander has amassed 754 runs in 7 games at an average of 188.5 with four centuries.
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In an exclusive interview with The Indian Express, Prithvi Shaw recently opened up about his struggles and the advice he got from Sachin Tendulkar after the Australia tour.
"I met Sachin sir (Tendulkar) after I came back, he said don’t make too many changes and to just play as close to the body as I could. I was late on the ball. So during the entire Australia tour, I worked on that part. Maybe it was because I had gone to Australia after playing in Dubai (IPL),” Shaw said.
"My mind was messed up. My bat was coming down from the gully area, but that’s how I have scored runs all my life. The problem was the way I was getting out and I had to fix it immediately. My back lift was the same but my bat was coming down slightly away from my body. There was an issue with the initial movement. I was in a fixed position. I needed to keep my bat closer to my body, which I wasn’t doing,” he added.
After his failures in the pink-ball Test at Adelaide, Shaw also sought the help of head coach Ravi Shastri and batting coach Vikram Rathour to fix his issues.
“Ravi (Shastri) Sir and Vikram (Rathour) Sir made me realize where I was going wrong. I had to find a solution. Just go back to the nets and fix it. There were small mistakes that I was making. Those two innings (Adelaide, pink-ball Test) made me look bad,” he remarked.
