Ahead of the upcoming IPL, Delhi Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting has revealed his struggles with coaching Prithvi Shaw in the previous edition, as per TNN. Prithvi Shaw was in outrageous form in Vijay Hazare Trophy recently where he scored 827 runs and set a new benchmark. Ponting feels Shaw can be a “superstar player” but questioned his unwillingness to work hard at his game in the nets during a rough patch.
Ricky Ponting: Prithvi Shaw Doesn’t Like To Work In Nets When He Is Struggling For Runs
The Delhi Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting revealed this “interesting theory” of Shaw. Ponting said he tried hard to get Shaw to work on certain aspects of his game when the opener was out of form during the last IPL, but couldn’t get Shaw into the nets. Shaw doesn’t like to work in the nets when he is struggling for runs, but keeps on batting and batting in the nets when he is in form
“I’ve had some really interesting chats with him through last year’s IPL, just trying to break him down, trying to find out exactly what was the right way to coach him and how I was going to get the best out of him,” Ponting told cricket.com.au.
“He had an interesting theory on his batting last year. When he’s not scoring runs, he won’t bat, and when he is scoring runs, he wants to keep batting all the time. He had four or five games where he made under ten and I’m telling him, ‘We have to go to the nets and work out [what’s wrong]’, and he looked me in the eye and said, ‘No, I’m not batting today’. I couldn’t really work that out.
“He might have changed. I know he’s done a lot of work over the last few months, that theory that he had might have changed, and hopefully, it has, because if we can get the best out of him, he could be a superstar player.”
Ponting said that he told Shaw during the 2020 IPL that he disagreed with his philosophy about practice. Shaw started the tournament as the Capitals’ incumbent opener but eventually lost his place in the XI due to poor form.
“I was going pretty hard at him,” Ponting said. “I was basically telling him, ‘Mate you’ve got to get in the nets. Whatever you think you’re working on, is not working for you.’
“It’s my job as a coach to challenge someone’s preparation if they’re not getting results. So I challenged him and he stuck to his word and he didn’t practice much at all towards the back-end of the tournament, and didn’t get many runs towards the back-end of the tournament either.”
Shaw had a year to forget as he failed in the Test series against Australia and later not getting selected in England’s tour. Considering his form in Vijay Hazare Trophy, he’ll be seen opening with Shikhar Dhawan in their First match vs Chennai Super Kings on 10th April 2021.
