New Delhi: Prithvi Shaw has been here before. In 2013, at the age of 14, he made a splash with a record 546 runs in the Harris Shield tournament. Then came the slump—he couldn’t perform at the state level or local matches. By the end of 2017, he was back in form.
From there, he went on to become the Under-19 captain for India, leading a team that won the World Cup in 2018. He made it to the national team, scored a remarkable century on his Test debut and raked in the big bucks at the Indian Premier League (IPL) auction.
Shaw now stands at the same fork in the road. He last played an ODI in 2021, was dropped from Mumbai’s Ranji squad in October and went unsold amid awkward silence at the IPL 2025 auction. Many have written him off as just another “has-been” in Indian cricket.
Those who have known him for long disagree. Friends, mentors and experts say he has enough in him to make another comeback, though there is only one path—discipline, doggedness and dutiful conduct toward the game.
But critics point to a laundry list of reasons behind his bad run: indiscipline, proclivity for controversies, subpar fitness, and a perceived lack of commitment.
Hours after this story was published, Shaw faced another setback. He was dropped Tuesday from the upcoming Vijay Hazare Trophy, scheduled to be played in Ahmedabad from 21 December. He was excluded from the 50-over tournament, after Mumbai Cricket Association said he needed to go back to play club games to regain some confidence.
Minutes after the snub, Shaw took to Instagram promising a “comeback”. “Tell me God, what more do I have to see? If 65 innings, 3399 runs at an average of 55.7 with a strike rate of 126, I’m not good enough. But I will keep my faith in you and, hopefully, people still believe in me, because I will come back for sure. Om Sai Ram,” he wrote.
Satyalaksh Jain, who shared the crease with Shaw during that unforgettable knock in 2013, tells ThePrint, “He has done it once, he can do it again. Don’t underestimate him.”
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‘Didn’t play for fame’
Prithvi Shaw’s story is no less than a legend straight out of Mumbai’s cricketing folklore.
Barely a week after Tendulkar retired, Shaw was being touted as his heir. The parallels were uncanny—both child prodigies, about the same height, Rizvi Springfield schoolboys, and boundary hitters.
Experts said Shaw’s back muscles and core provided stability needed for balance during strokes. Add to that, swift bat speed, coupled with torque generated by rotating the upper body, that allowed him to put power into his shots. His ability to shift his weight seamlessly, from the back foot to the front foot, or vice versa, added more power to his strokes, they said.
By 2018, he was making headlines with a scintillating 134 (off 154 deliveries) on his Test debut against West Indies.
Coach Prashant Shetty spotted Shaw’s talent when he was all of seven. “He was incredibly disciplined, batting for hours every single day. After playing with his team, he would go ahead and bat against 14-year-olds at the academy.”
“He was incredibly disciplined, batting for hours every single day. After playing with his team, he would go ahead and bat against 14-year-olds at the academy.”
Coach Prashant Shetty
Shetty was also impressed by Shaw’s routine: waking up at 4 am and taking a 4-5-hour local train journey to MIG Academy in Bandra East, where he practised until evening. Shetty says he was fond of the boy, and would constantly bring him up in interactions with Tendulkar.
In 2020, after Shaw was out of the game for 16 months because of an ankle injury and a failed dope test, Tendulkar told news agency PTI they had a “number of interactions over the years”. The iconic batter said he spoke to Shaw about cricket and life beyond the field. Two years earlier, after Shaw’s Test debut, Tendulkar had said he believed Shaw was a fast learner and that talent was one thing, but what one did with it was more important.
Shilpa, his sports teacher from school, describes Shaw as a “hardworking, humble, and cricket-obsessed student”.
“He was under my supervision in Class 11. All I can say: usko junoon tha cricket ka. His passion drove him to excel,” she says.
This passion was behind the national record Shaw set at the age of 14. He played 330 balls and built a 619-run partnership with Jain. Recalling their Harris Shield partnership, Jain adds, “Not once did I see trouble or stress on his face. He didn’t play for fame or getting into the Indian cricket team; he simply loved batting.”
After the innings, the cricketing world declared Shaw “the next Tendulkar”. For a 14-year-old still learning about the pressures of professional sport, it appears that this frenzy set him up for a fiasco.
Do names like Swapnil Asnodkar, Kamran Khan, Rahul Sharma, and Paul Valthaty ring a bell? They were IPL’s one-hit wonders, flashes of brilliance that faded due to inconsistency. Their stories prove that talent alone isn’t enough—discipline makes or breaks careers. And discipline has been Shaw’s Achilles’ heel.
His inconsistency in the national team has been stark—six years since his debut, Shaw’s international outings on the pitch have barely hit double digits. His struggle with in-swinging deliveries, given the gap between his bat and pad due to minimal front foot movement, has become evident.
‘A victim of his reputation’
“Shaw is a victim of his reputation, and has no one to blame,” says someone who has closely followed his game, referring to off-field controversies, from the 2019 doping ban to the 2023 nightclub spat, that made the tight-knit cricketing community wary.
“IPL owners hesitated to back him because they couldn’t trust his reliability or predict how he’d impact the dressing room,” reveals the person, who attended the IPL 2025 auction in Jeddah and has interacted with Shaw on multiple occasions. “There was also a fear that his lack of discipline might influence others.”
“There was also a fear that his lack of discipline might influence others.”
Person who attended the IPL 2025 auction
The day he was dropped from the Mumbai Ranji squad, a video clip surfaced of Shaw dancing at his birthday party. The 25-year-old later spoke out about reactions to the video. “I read all the comments, trolls, and memes. Sometimes, it does hurt. People trolled me for that dancing video, but it was my birthday—why can’t I celebrate it?”
The person quoted earlier adds that Shaw’s lifestyle began to unravel once he stepped away from the routine set for him by his father.
Though Shaw wasn’t from the same batch as fellow cricketing talents Sarfaraz Khan and Armaan Jaffer, one common thread bound them—fathers who supported their dreams and pushed them to work hard. Encouragement came in abundance, but so did pressure.
Hailing from Mumbai’s Virar, Shaw lost his mother at age four. His father’s clothing business collapsed. Yet, his father left no stone unturned in supporting Shaw’s dreams. Shetty and Shilpa remember Shaw’s father as a devoted man, but Jain says he was quite “harsh” towards the boy.
Shaw’s personal life became a topic of conversation after a video surfaced in February 2023 showing a man approaching Shaw for a selfie at a nightclub. Within seconds, an argument erupts between the two as they nearly come to blows. In another video from later the same night, Shaw can be seen losing his cool in full public view.
Media reports said that when Shaw was dropped from the Ranji squad, he had 35% body fat, much higher than the 15% figure recommended for batters and wicket-keepers. He is understood to have been told to shed some weight before being considered for selection.
While Shetty says Shaw was at the “wrong place, at the wrong time”, Jain sees jealousy. “Shaw has struggled in his childhood. Today, he is enjoying his comfortable life and some people are not able to digest it… stop troubling him with negativity.”
Shilpa says Shaw may have stumbled along the way. “His choice of company could have been an issue,” she says. “I feel that he has also taken things, especially the sport, lightly and for granted,” she adds.
The person present at the auction says, “I’ve seen players like Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli in similar situations, but the difference was they had someone to warn them about how such behaviour could impact their health in the long run—and, more importantly, they listened… Partying until 3 am isn’t exactly the recipe for crushing it at an 8 am net session.”
In addition to discipline, Shaw’s fitness has kept him off the field. That said, Shaw has never been the athletic type; he’s like many other old-school Bombay batsmen—focused mostly on batting, and batting big. Running between the wickets to build an innings wasn’t his style.
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‘Too talented to throw it all away’
While Shaw might have faced excessive scrutiny from media and fans on social media, the cricketing fraternity has time and again expressed their trust in his capabilities.
Former England captain Kevin Pietersen in a post on ‘X’ advised Shaw to surround himself with decent people who care about his long-term success. “…they’d sit him down, tell him to get off social media and train his absolute backside off in getting super fit. It’ll get him back into the correct path where past success can return. Too talented to throw it all away.”
Some of the greatest sports stories are COMEBACK stories.
If Prithvi Shaw has decent people around him who care about his long term success, they’d sit him down, tell him to get off social media & train his absolute backside off in getting super fit. It’ll get him back into the…
— Kevin Pietersen🦏 (@KP24) December 3, 2024
Former Australia all-rounder Shane Watson agreed. “Prithvi is such a precocious talent and these are all that is required for him to turn things around and be one of Indian cricket’s biggest heroes,” wrote Watson who worked closely with Shaw as assistant coach of Delhi Capitals.
Former Australia captain and India coach Greg Chappell advised Shaw to embark on a “journey of self-reflection” and prioritise processes over results. “Remember, setbacks are a part of every great athlete’s story,” Chappell wrote to Shaw in a letter. Chappell and Shaw crossed paths at the Under-19 World Cup in 2018, when Chappell was Cricket Australia’s talent manager and Shaw was captain of the Indian team.
Former cricketer Mohammad Kaif, too, suggested that Shaw needs to go back to the drawing board. Recalling team meetings at Delhi Capitals, Kaif said the management would drop Shaw from playing XI at night, but rope him in right before the toss. “We would think that maybe if he scores today, there is a chance that we win the match. And, he got multiple opportunities. DC backed him up but this year’s IPL snub is really embarrassing for him.”
“We would think that maybe if he scores today, there is a chance that we win the match. And, he got multiple opportunities. DC backed him up but this year’s IPL snub is really embarrassing for him.”
Former cricketer Mohammad Kaif
Meanwhile, veteran sports journalist Pradeep Magazine suggests that Shaw isn’t out of form. Instead, he is struggling to handle success, fame and money. “What else could be the reason? Can’t people see it? A cricketer of that calibre cannot just start acting up like that,” he tells ThePrint, underlining that Shaw does need recovery, “but more mentally than physically.”
Rohit 2.0 or Kambli 2.0?
For now, Shaw’s meteoric rise and downfall has sparked fears that he might be heading down the same path as Vinod Kambli. The son of a truck driver, Kambli was often said to be a better batter than Tendulkar. He was regarded as one of the most gifted cricketers of his generation. But, his fall from grace is a tale of immense talent overshadowed by personal struggles, lack of discipline, a drinking problem and public spats.
Indian skipper Rohit Sharma, too, faced a similar crossroads in his career. Known for gulping down a whole bottle of Old Monk in one sitting, an anecdote documented by former South African opener Herschelle Gibbs in his autobiography, Sharma had his share of discipline and fitness struggles. But, after being dropped from the 2011 World Cup squad, Sharma turned to his close friend and then roommate Abhishek Nayar’s 45-day regime, and it was a turning point in his career. Nayar is now India’s assistant coach.
Shaw, too, has people eager to help him regain his form and fitness.
“The next few months will decide whether Shaw will become Kambli 2.0 or Sharma 2.0. As for me, I want him to just become the old ‘Prithvi Shaw’. It would be enough,” says a Mumbai-based sports journalist who has closely followed Shaw’s journey and written on him extensively. He asked not to be named.
Jain believes Shaw’s best chance at a comeback lies in returning to his father’s mentorship. “His father instilled discipline in him—whether through fear, pressure, or whatever. As long as he was under his father’s guidance, his commitment to cricket never wavered.”
At 25, Shaw has time to rewrite his story, but Indian cricket’s talent pool is brimming over, making the road to redemption steeper than ever. Mumbai has already delivered its next cricketing sensation—Yashasvi Jaiswal. The young batter, who recently made an emphatic debut for India, is also a proud alumnus of Rizvi Springfield. Having played just 16 Tests, he already has four centuries and eight fifties to his name.
Shilpa, who taught both Shaw and Jaiswal, says there is a difference in attitude between the two from their early days. “Even though Jaiswal is younger… he has handled fame and the limelight better than Shaw seems to have handled.” She believes in Shaw’s ability to go big, but says that redemption lies only in his hands.
This is an updated version of the report
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
Prithvi Shaw’s abdominal tyre is filled with alcohol. I didn’t know that Rohit Sharma’s tyre was also filled with alcohol in the past.