We had to hide him, he’s his own enemy: MCA dismisses Shaw’s outburst over Vijay Hazare snub

PTI, Dec 20, 2024, 1:16 PM IST

Prithvi Shaw (pti/file)

Mumbai: The Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) has brushed aside Prithvi Shaw’s emotional outburst after his exclusion from the Vijay Hazare Trophy squad, asserting that the temperamental batter has flouted disciplinary norms regularly and is “his own enemy”.

A senior official of the MCA, while talking to PTI, claimed that the side was at times “forced to hide” him on the field due to his poor fitness, discipline and attitude.

Shaw had expressed his frustration at not being picked in the 16-member squad for the Vijay Hazare Trophy in a viral social media post some days ago after being a part of the side’s title-winning Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy campaign.

“In the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, we were playing with 10 fielders as we were forced to hide Prithvi Shaw. The ball would pass near him and he would barely be able to get to it,” the official said on conditions of anonymity.

“Even while batting, we could see he was troubled reaching to the ball. His fitness, discipline and attitude are poor and it is pretty simple, there cannot be different rules for different players,” he claimed.

“Even the seniors in the team have started complaining about his attitude now,” he added.

During the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, Shaw missed training sessions regularly after showing up at the team hotel at “six in the morning” being out for most of the night.

The youngster has defended himself by sayin Shaw, who has attracted a lot of attention for his off-field activities and not doing his talent justice by focussing on his game, would not get any favour from such social media posts, the official said.

“You would be wrong to think such posts on social media would have any impact on the Mumbai selectors and the MCA,” he added.

Shaw’s teammate and Mumbai captain Shreyas Iyer too had issued a stern statement on the night Mumbai defeated Madhya Pradesh in the final to win the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy.

“He needs to get his work ethics right. And if he does that, (the) sky’s the limit for him,” Iyer told reporters in Bengaluru.

“We can’t babysit anyone, right? He has played so much of cricket. Everyone has given him inputs. At the end of the day, it’s his job to figure out things for himself. And he has also done it in the past. It’s not that he hasn’t,” he added.

Shaw was earlier left out of Mumbai’s Ranji Trophy squad for similar reasons in October after which he was given a specific fitness program to work on at the MCA Academy.

“He is not following that as well properly,” the official said.

Shaw broke into the scene amid a lot of hype, making his Test debut in 2018 as an 18-year-old in a home series against the West Indies.

His lone century in the format was on that exciting debut but since then, he has appeared in just four more Tests, the last of these being against Australia four years ago.

His ODI and T20 International career has also failed to take off and he hasn’t played any white-ball cricket for India since 2021. These are markedly underwhelming statistics for a player, who was touted as the next big thing in Indian cricket just a few years ago.

Several former players have expressed their concern about his antics and attitude both on and off the field. A recent low for him was failing to find any takers in the IPL auction despite coming in with a relatively low base price of Rs 75 lakh.

“I’ll tell you one thing. No one is Shaw’s enemy. He is his own enemy,” the MCA official stated, voicing the frustration that the cricket fraternity in India has felt over him not living up to the early promise.