I don't mind starting from scratch: Prithvi Shaw

CHENNAI: Prithvi Shaw was Shubman Gill’s captain in the U-19 World Cup that India won in New Zealand in 2018. Seven years down the line, Gill is on the cusp of the Indian senior team’s allformat captaincy while Shaw, once touted as a ‘boy wonder’ and the ‘next big thing’, is trying to make a comeback into the firstclass fold after losing his way.

Question marks over fitness, form and discipline took a huge toll on the opener as he got dropped from the Mumbai Ranji squad last year and went unsold in the IPL-2025 auction. Now he is back in the domestic scene where it all began, this time turning out for Maharashtra. Shaw, who had scored a ton on his India Test debut, announced his comeback in familiar fashion with a well-paced century (111; 141b; 15x4, 1x6) against Chhattisgarh on Day Two of the Buchi Babu tournament here on Tuesday.

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“I don’t mind starting from scratch again because I’ve seen many ups and downs in my life. I’ve been up there and been down there. I’ve also come back up there. So, everything is possible. I’m confident of myself, my work ethic. And my family has been the biggest support in my tough times. Hopefully, I’ll get back there soon,” said Shaw. During his knock, as he entered the nineties, the right-hander danced down the track to launch a stunning six.

Shaw said he was going back to basics and taking each day as it comes. “I don’t want to change anything. I feel I just went back to basics, doing the things I used to do in my under-19 days, things which got me into the Indian team. I’m just doing all that stuff back again. “I’m trying to be myself and trying not to be on social media or any of those kinds of distractions. It’s kind of peaceful when I’m not using it,” he added. Shaw has started to get his belief back. “I feel I have never lost. It’s always about learning. Earlier, I was trying to think about the future and I don’t think it worked for me. So now what I’m trying to do is go day by day. I try to be in the present. I’m that kind of person right now.” Asked if he received any messages or calls from the cricket fraternity during his ‘tough times’, pat came the reply: “No one.” “It’s fine. I don’t want anyone’s sympathy. I’ve had my family’s support and my friends who were there with me when I was not really well mentally.

Obviously, people are busy doing their work and they have their family as well. So it didn’t bother me at all because I had my family and then I was practising.

“I was in that zone where I was doing everything alone and it was really good for me.” Shaw said he has also been focusing on his fitness in the build-up to the season. “These two-three months, I had my trainer come personally and train me, and I’ve got a dietician as well. “All this over the last threefour months has really changed me physically and mentally. And maybe it can be seen on the field,” said Shaw, who was running briskly between the wickets earlier in the day.