Delhi Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting has revealed that Prithvi Shaw would not bat in the nets when he was not scoring runs and would keep batting when he was scoring runs.
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Prithvi Shaw has endured a roller-coaster ride in the last couple of months. In IPL 2020, he struggled to score runs. In the Pink Ball Test in Adelaide, Shaw was undone by swing in both occasions and did not play the entire series. There was redemption in the Vijay Hazare Trophy as he smashed over 800 runs and averaged 165 as Mumbai won the title. The exploits in the Vijay Hazare tournament has given Shaw plenty of confidence ahead of IPL 2021. However, Delhi Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting has revealed an interesting insight into Shaw’s batting mentality.
In an interaction with Cricket Australia, Ponting revealed a very interesting insight on Shaw’s batting. “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 10. I’m telling him, ‘We have to go to the nets and work out (what’s wrong)’. He looked me in the eye and said, ‘No, I’m not batting today’. I couldn’t really work that out,” Ponting said.
Shaw’s mentality goes against the normal method of batting and regaining form. When a batsman is not in good form, he spends a fair amount of time in the nets. When scoring runs, the batsman spends a limited time in the nets for rhythm. However, Shaw’s problems highlight the inconsistency that he has been facing for the last couple of seasons.
In fact, Shaw was so set in his ways that Ponting had a hard time in trying to convince Shaw to change his mindset. In fact, despite Ponting’s advice, Shaw stuck to his guns. “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,” Ponting said.
Ponting is hopeful that Shaw has changed his mindset as he looks to give Delhi Capitals a boost in IPL 2021. “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.
