India batter Prithvi Shaw on Wednesday (August 9) shattered records as he slammed a dazzling double hundred while playing for Northamptonshire against Somerset in the Metro Bank One-Day Cup 2023 at the County Ground, Northampton.
Opening the innings, Shaw took the Somerset bowling attack to the cleaners. He got out in the 50th over of the innings after scoring 244 off 153 balls, including 28 fours and 11 sixes.
Despite his whirlwind knock, Prithvi Shaw was at the receiving end of some harsh social media trolling for his weight gain and receding hairline.
After his celebration pics emerged on social media, Shaw was mocked by many netizens, including content creator and entrepreneur Ankur Warikoo.
Commenting on Shaw’s picture, Warikoo wrote, “Bet his mom thinks he has lost weight.”
However, Warikoo’s remark didn’t go down well with many fans as they felt it was in bad taste. While some of them highlighted Prithvi Shaw’s struggle with mental health lately, others mentioned that the cricketer had lost his mother at a young age.
Later, Warikoo admitted that he made a horrible mistake and also apologised to Shaw on social media platform X.
Warikoo wrote: “I realize my mistake after people’s responses. This pic is Prithvi Shaw’s who lost his mother at the age of 4. Which makes my post extremely insensitive and not something I am proud of. In an attempt to invoke my mom’s natural reaction to my fitness levels in my 20s, I made a horrible mistake.”
He added, “@PrithviShaw I do not expect you to read this or least of all forgive me. But it is my responsibility to apologize for this. I am truly sorry. For clarification - I do not follow cricket actively, so I was not aware of Prithvi (beyond his name). Would have acted differently was I aware of him and his history.”
Warikoo ended his post by saying, “PS: Not deleting this post, so that this continues to act as a reminder to me.”
After an impressive start to his international career, Prithvi Shaw has fallen behind in the packing order. The last time he played for the country was back in July 2021 in a T20I game against Sri Lanka in Colombo.
After his blistering double century, Shaw said he is not thinking about Indian selection and rather focusing on enjoying his time with Northants.
"Definitely experience for sure. Not really thinking what the Indian selectors may be thinking, but I just want to have a good time here, have a good time with the players over here and the support staff. Northamptonshire have given me this opportunity... they're really looking after me. I'm really enjoying it," Shaw was quoted as saying.
