Prithvi Shaw’s journey from an Indian cricket prodigy to IPL reject

Dubai: What happened to Prithvi Shaw, the next Sachin Tendulkar? After a meteoric rise, the Mumbai batsman’s career seemed to have sunk. The nadir came at this year’s Indian Premier League 2025 auction in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah. Shaw went unsold for the first time in eight years despite the base price of only 7.5 million rupees (Dh326,000). There were no takers. He doesn’t have a team. A mighty fall, indeed.

Shaw is a phenomenal talent. No doubt about it. Many say his attitude is the problem. A dashing batter in the Virender Sehwag mould, the 25-year-old refuses to heed advice even when runs dried up, reports say.

“Prithvi has been in Delhi Capitals. In DC itself, he had a chance to interact with Rahul Dravid, who was also his U-19 India coach, Ricky Ponting and Sourav Ganguly. It’s an open secret in Mumbai cricket that Tendulkar has also spoken to him. Are these legends fools? Do you see any change in him? Even if there is, it is not evident,” a selector told the Press Trust of India news agency.

Is Prithvi Shaw headed the Vinod Kambi route?

During Shaw’s lean trot in 2021, Delhi Capitals head coach Ponting said the youngster refused to attend net practice. “He [Shaw] had an interesting theory on his batting — when he’s not scoring runs, he won’t bat, and when he is scoring runs, he wants to keep batting all the time,” the former Australian captain told cricket.com.au.

The opening batsman’s run drought became so bad that Ponting had to look at other options. “When you feel like you’re not making players better and they’re not doing what you need for the team, then you’ve got to look for other players who can do it for you. So that comes back to the player,” Ponting told Cricbuzz, adding that he has had a lot of chats with Shaw to try and make him a better cricketer.

The parallels with Vinod Kambli are inescapable. Kambli’s precocious talent blossomed on the international stage only to whither away. There are fears that Shaw might go the same route. Both hail from a humble background and found international stardom only to slide down the slippery slope to obscurity.

Shaw’s talent is undeniable. As a 14-year-old, he scored 546 off 330 balls in Mumbai’s Harris Shield age-group tournament in 2013. Three years later, Shaw struck a ton on Ranji Trophy debut and soon became the youngest Duleep Trophy centurion, displacing Tendulkar.

Cricket pundits called Shaw a generation talent. His reputation grew after leading India to a 2018 Under-19 World Cup win, and it was no surprise when he played for India against the West Indies the same year. The 18-year-old’s debut Test hundred promised a long and fruitful career, but Shaw played only four more Tests, six One-Day Internationals and a T20 International.

Despite the poor international record, Shaw thrived in the IPL, becoming one of two players to score six boundaries in an over. That feat in 2021 remains in the rearview mirror. Two summers with Northamptonshire worked out well, and the highlight was the 244 off 153 balls in the One-Day Cup.

Back in India, Shaw’s form dipped. Following a run drought, Shaw became increasingly temperamental, often hitting the headlines for the wrong reasons. Fitness problems and disciplinary issues added to his woes, and he became fodder for online trolls.

Last month, Mumbai dropped Shaw from the squad for the Ranji game in Agartala after reportedly failing to attend training sessions and having issues with fitness and discipline. “You have to look at his fitness and his running when he is on the field. The MCA has a rich history, and there cannot be exceptions for a certain player,” an official from the Mumbai Cricket Association told PTI.

A few days before the IPL auction, Shaw told social media influencer Karan Sonawane on the YouTube channel ‘Focussed Indian’ that the best one-line advice he received came from Sachin Tendulkar: Discipline beats talent. Shaw has talent but needs the discipline to channel it.

The IPL auction setback is telling. With a base price, his name came up twice, but no paddle went up. None of the ten franchises wanted Shaw. The 2018 India U-19 captain went unsold. His teammates Shubman Gill, Abhishek Sharma, Arshdeep Singh and Riyan Parag walked away with hefty paycheques.

Shaw still has plenty of cricket in him. He has to have the discipline to work on his fitness. More importantly, he needs to score runs. Tons of it. Or else, he will become the forgotten wunderkind of Indian cricket.