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Opening batsman Prithvi Shaw lost his place in the Mumbai team once again as the Sanjay Patil-led senior selection committee decided not to pick him for the first three matches — (v Karnataka on Dec 21, v Hyderabad on Dec 23 and Arunachal Pradesh on Dec 26) — of the Vijay Hazare Trophy that begins in Ahmedabad on Saturday.
The in-form Ajinkya Rahane is not available for the first two games due to personal reasons. He was the highest scorer (469 runs) in Mumbai’s Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 Trophy [SMAT] triumph in Bangalore recently. Shreyas Iyer, who led Mumbai to their second domestic T20 championship title on Sunday, will lead the team in the 50-over format as well with India’s T20 skipper Suryakumar Yadav and India all-rounders Shardul Thakur and Shivam Dube also in the squad.
“He [Shaw] is dropped due to poor performance and Ajinkya has requested to be rested for a couple of games due to a family function,” Patil told mid-day on Tuesday.
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Shaw, 25, scored 197 in nine SMAT games with a top score of 49 against Vidarbha at Alur. India U-19 opener Ayush Mhatre, 17, who has scored two centuries in six first-class matches will replace Shaw, while Jay Bista, 28, has been included in place of Rahane.
Shaw was previously dropped ahead of Mumbai’s Ranji Trophy game against Tripura last October. In his last three first-class games, Shaw has score a total of 139 runs — four and 76 v Rest of India in the Irani Cup, seven and 12 v Baroda in the Ranji opener, one and 39 not out against Maharashtra. Shaw, with a base price of Rs 75 lakh, went unsold at the Indian Premier League auction last month.
“We want to promote youngsters and give them maximum chances to build a good bench strength,” added Patil, a former Mumbai left-arm spinner.
I will come back for sure: Prithvi Shaw
India’s 2018 U-19 World Cup-winning captain Prithvi Shaw, 25, who scored debut centuries in the Ranji Trophy, Duleep Trophy and Test cricket, expressed his disappointment on social media after losing his place in the Mumbai team for the 50-over Vijay Hazare Trophy.
In a message on Instagram, Shaw mentioned his List A [50-over cricket] stats and wrote: “Tell me God, what more do I have to see if 65 innings, 3,399 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 believe in me still…cause I will come back
for sure.”
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