Prithvi Shaw back with a bang

MUMBAI: The year 2018 was a landmark one for Mumbai's young batting sensation Prithvi Shaw. It was also a year which almost jeopardised his international career.
Shaw made his Test debut against West Indies and became the youngest Indian batsman to score a century on debut at Rajkot, the same venue where he also scored a ton on debut in the Ranji Trophy.
The script, which started like a fairy tale, soon turned into a nightmare.Shaw, who was part of India's squad on the tour to Australia suffered an ankle injury during a warm-up match Down Under and couldn't recover for the rest of the series. Midway through the tour of Australia, Shaw was sent back home amid speculation that the youngster had begun to lose focus.
If that snub was not enough, Shaw was handed an eight-month doping ban after he consumed cough syrup with banned drug Terbutaline during the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy in Indore in February. Competitive cricket, for Shaw, suddenly seemed distant.
His ban ended on Friday (November 15) and he took the field on Sunday in Mumbai's last group game in the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy against Assam at the Wankhede Stadium. The youngster slammed an organised 38-ball 63. Assam, who won the toss and put Mumbai in, fell short by 83 runs.
LONG TIME: Prithvi Shaw pays obeisance to the Wankhede turf prior to walking out with Aditya Tare for Mumbai against Assam
Mumbai had scored 206, with useful contributions from Aditya Tare (79) Shaw (63) and Siddhesh Lad (32). Assam, who were never really in the chase, folded for 123 in 20 overs. For Mumbai, Dhawal Kulkarni (2-28), Shivam Dube (2-3) and Shams Mulani (2-15) shared six of the eight Assam wickets that fell on the day.
With Mumbai having already qualified for the Super League stage of the tournament, the entire focus was on Shaw. And the youngster, who just recently turned 20, seemed to be in total control. He opened the innings with Tare and took his time to settle down. The fact that Tare was blazing away at the other end helped Shaw adopt a much-relaxed approach.
He celebrated getting to the fifty in a similar way to India skipper Virat Kohli when the latter gets to a major milestone: pointing to the bat manufacturer's logo with his gloves and suggesting that his willow will henceforth talk. Clearly, all the reports alleging that his lifestyle and discipline had been compromised due to stardust in his eyes and mind seem to have made the youngster determined to change things.
"I was desperate to play a game for a while now," he revealed and talked about his experience in the middle. "There was no plan when I went into bat. I just wanted to put away the balls that were in my area. In the power-play I didn't get as much strike. Aditya was playing well, so I wanted to just take a run and give him the strike. So I thought that I should let him take charge in the powerplay overs and I will go for my shots thereafter. And that plan worked pretty well. We needed a good opening partnership."
An eight-month layoff from cricket seems to have given Shaw an opportunity to introspect. "I never thought that something like this would happen. I was obviously upset. For the first 20-25 days after I was banned, I was not able to make sense of things. But as time passed, I got hold of myself," says Shaw.
Shaw also said that he wanted to isolate himself from people. "There was a time when I didn't want anyone around me. So I went to London for a while, trained and practised there. I only had my trainer for company. A few days later, Rahul (Dravid) sir called me to NCA for training. There I went through a series of fitness tests like Yoyo, etc. And then I have been here with the team for the last three-four days."
Brief scores: Mumbai 206 for 5 (Aditya Tare 82, Prithvi Shaw 63, Riyan Parag 3/30) beat Assam 123 for 8 (Riyan Parag 38, Sibsankar Roy 22, Shivam Dube 2/3) by 83 runs