Sharing the dressing room with Kohli an honour, Shaw says

Kolkata: It had been an eventful 2018 for Prithvi Shaw, the young Mumbai opener. If winning the Under-19 World Cup in January ushered in the New Year in style, the news of Shaw being drafted into the Test contingent in England — alongwith young middle order batsman Hanuma Vihari — vindicated the senior team management’s faith in him.

Shaw took time out — in between a flurry of congratulatory phone calls the day he got the news — to speak to this correspondent. Following are the excerpts from the interview:

Winning the U-19 World Cup in January in Australia and now fast-tracked into the senior Test team with the series tied 1-2 with all to play for, you are on a rollercoaster ride this year. Clearly, you are on the fast lane to success…

To be very honest with you, I still can’t believe all of this is happening to me. Just in a matter of eight months to win the U-19 World Cup as captain and then make the Test team is quite unreal. Had anyone said this to me at the start of the year, I would actually have laughed it off.

Frankly, this is what you dream about — to get picked for the Test team. That’s why you work hard and give it your best day in and day out. To represent your country is the ultimate honour and to play Test cricket for India will be the ultimate fulfilment of my cricketing ambition.

You have scored a lot of runs this season. You had a very successful outing for India A in England and deserve this call up. Did you ever feel it can come your way more with the openers not playing to potential in England in the first two Tests?

No, I did not. I was just trying to focus on the games at hand and did not think I might be called to go to England for the last two Tests. That’s why I was pleasantly surprised when I started getting a flurry of calls and messages in the evening. I refused to believe and as I told you that it was when I saw the team on the BCCI twitter handle, it finally dawned on me that I have been chosen.

While there is little doubt about your potential, to play quality swing bowling at the highest level requires a very different skill-set. Anderson, Broad and Woakes are the very best in the world. Have you started to think how you will face them if you get an opportunity?

No, I haven’t, not yet but I will do soon. It will have to be about myself and what I can do. I will have to be fully ready for whatever comes my way as a batsman. It will be about my strengths and what I can and need to do. They are all very good bowlers but I am not going to think about them going into the game. For me, it will be about my preparation and to get ready the best way I can.

To share the dressing room with Virat will in itself be a major learning process for you. Look at the way he has batted in extremely trying conditions. How do you look forward to this experience?

I agree. To see him (Kohli) from close quarters how he gets ready, how he bats in these conditions, trains and prepares himself will be something I will learn a lot from. And it is something I am desperately looking forward to doing — I want to soak it all in and make the most of this opportunity that I have been given.

I will contribute to the team, whatever way I can, because wearing the Indian shirt is a matter of immense pride for me.

— The author is a sports journalist, author and research scholar based in India.