Keen on letting my bat do talking and leave the rest to selectors, says Prithvi Shaw
Returning to competitive cricket after serving a doping suspension, Prithvi Shaw has said that he is now completely focused on letting his bat do the talking to force his way back into the Indian team. On his comeback, Shaw hit a 39-ball 63 as Mumbai thrashed Assam in a Mushtaq Ali T20 match.
Before the 20-year-old was suspended for eight months for failing a dope test, Shaw had just kick-started his Test career for India. And that too, in dream fashion, with a hundred in his debut innings against West Indies, followed up by a 70 and an unbeaten 33. Mayank Agarwal replaced him in the squad for the Australia tour as he picked up an injury, and more recently, Rohit Sharma has made the move up the order with success. So making a comeback into the national setup right away seems a difficult task, but Shaw is keen on doing his bit as well as he can.
"Now I will focus on scoring as many runs as possible and win games for the team. I will just keep scoring runs. It is all about the selectors and what they think. My job is to score runs and win games for the team," Shaw told PTI.
He further revealed details about the emotional ride during the ban period, particularly thanking Rahul Dravid — the director at NCA — and his father, Pankaj, for their support.
"I had never thought that something like this would happen. I was obviously upset. For the first 20-25 days after I was banned, I was not able to understand how it happened. Each day was hard, it was getting longer. It's all in the past now," he said.
"There was nothing in my mind. I couldn't have done anything about the ban. After returning from London, Rahul (Dravid) sir called me to the NCA for training. There I went through a series of fitness tests like yo-yo. Under Rahul sir a lot of focus was on fitness. I had to clear all my fitness tests. Rahul sir was always there for guidance and mental issues.
"I think this period has been a big learning experience for me. Obviously I committed a mistake. I had no idea what I was consuming. In life ups and downs will be there. My father has stood behind me and nobody else is there. In these three months he was with me like he has been during the U-14 and U-16 days. He felt that he needed to be with me."
