Prithvi Shaw dropped from Mumbai Vijay Hazare squad

In a disappointing turn of events, Prithvi Shaw was left out of the Mumbai squad for the upcoming 50-over Vijay Hazare Trophy tournament despite his impressive performance in List A cricket. Shaw, who had been hoping to make a strong comeback, received another setback as his name was missing from the 17-member squad announced by the Mumbai selectors on Tuesday for the first three games of the tournament.

The opening batter was in the eleven which won the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy final against Madhya Pradesh in Bengaluru on Sunday. Among the first-choice players, there are two others missing – Ajinkya Rahane (personal reasons) and Mohit Avasthi (injury).

“Prithvi is dropped,” said Mumbai Cricket Association secretary Abhay Hadap. Though he didn’t specify any reason, MCA sources said it was on “fitness grounds”.

Expressing his disappointment, Shaw put out an Instagram post, highlighting his numbers in List A matches. “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 (in Vijay Hazare), 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.

Shreyas Iyer, who led Mumbai to SMAT victory on Sunday, will be the captain. After the final, Iyer had minced no words in spelling out that the player must take responsibility for his actions. “He (Shaw) needs to get his work ethic right, and if he does that, sky is the limit for him,” Iyer said. “We cannot babysit anyone, right? Every professional playing at this level needs to understand what they should be doing. And he (Shaw) has done it before; it’s not like he hasn’t. He needs to focus, sit back, put on a thinking cap, and figure things out. He will find the answers on his own,” Iyer added.

This season Shaw has received a number of setbacks, starting with his axing from the Ranji Trophy squad after the first two games. It cost him an IPL spot after he went unsold in the players auction.

Shaw’s record in all formats is good though. Apart from his outstanding record in List A, in first-class cricket he averages 46.02 with 13 hundreds and has 4,556 runs in 58 games.

A prodigious batting talent, the victorious under-19 World Cup skipper has played five Tests, six ODIs and one T20I for the senior side, but his career has been marred by disciplinary issues. With the Mumbai selectors having made up their minds to not give him any further leeway, his best chance was to have a blockbuster SMAT. He showed glimpses of his talent with couple of cameos but couldn’t get the big scores, leaving him at the selectors’ mercy.

In nine SMAT matches, the opener scored 197 runs at an average of 21.88 with a strike rate of 156.34 and a top score of 49.