Prithvi Shaw opens up about Ricky Ponting’s ‘he doesn’t bat in nets when he’s not scoring’ comment

Indian youngster Prithvi Shaw is one of the most talented prospects in the country. He led the U19 team to a fantastic World Cup win in 2018 but had to take a step back in his career when he tested positive for a banned substance after a drugs test in 2019.

Nevertheless, Shaw got back to his feet and continued to make forays into the national side. The young batsman was dropped from the Indian squad following a disastrous run in Australia where Pat Cummins and Mitchell Starc ate him for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Shaw also had an erratic and inconsistent season in the Indian Premier League in 2020 where he ended up scoring just 228 runs for Delhi Capitals had a woeful average of 17.54.

Ahead of IPL 2021, his head coach at DC Ricky Ponting shared an interesting story regarding the 21-year-old. Ponting claimed that last year when Shaw was among the runs and doing well, he’d always be in the nets. However, when he didn’t get any runs and was dismissed for low scores, he’d never bat in the nets.

Responding to Ponting’s comments, Prithvi Shaw now shed light on the fact that he often felt frustrated when things didn’t go his way and gave up in training sessions.

“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,” said Shaw as quoted by Cricbuzz.

He also added that in those moments, he switched-off from the game and took the backseat. “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 sir was talking about,” concluded Shaw.

The diminutive batsman, however, roared back to form in 2021, first in the Vijay Hazare Trophy, where his 827 runs at an average of 165.40 helped Mumbai win the tournament and then in IPL 2021.

In the latest edition of the cash-rich league which unfortunately came to a quick halt because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Shaw amassed 308 runs at an average of 38.50 and a strike rate of 166.49.