The out-of-favour batter of India, Prithvi Shaw, is going through the rough patch. He went unsold at the IPL 2025 mega auction, which was held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Once seen as the next big hope of Indian cricket after winning the 2018 U-19 World Cup, the batsman now seems to have fallen from grace over the past few years. It has only added salt to the wound that Shaw will also not be seen playing an IPL match in the forthcoming season. Regarding his base price of Rs 75 lakh, his name came thrice up at the auction, but no paddle was raised.
This will be the first occasion when the right-handed batter will not play in a season since he made his IPL debut, which occurred in 2018.
However, apart from the copious amounts of time Shaw seems to have wasted, he gets lambasted for this as well by various former India cricketers and experts as to how much he is maintaining shape and behaving. Now a former India selector has also questioned his improvement.
“Prithvi has been in Delhi Capitals. In DC itself, he had a chance to interact with Rahul Dravid, who was also his U-19 India coach, Ricky Ponting, Sourav Ganguly,” former India selector who had watched him closely told PTI.
“It’s an open secret in Mumbai cricket that Tendulkar has also spoken to him. Are these legends fools? Do you see any change in him? Even if there is, it is not evident,” he added.
No one at all in IPL 2025 was interested in Shaw. He had burst into the collective consciousness with boyish charm and game on the field that matched it.
But much can happen over six years, and at the end of this latest IPL disappointment, Shaw stands in the crossroads of his career – boom or bust, depending on how much he wants to take from that talent.
In Indian cricket, one has a saying that perception travels faster than light, and there is nothing to prove positive about Shaw in any aspect. Even Mumbai Cricket Association dropped its name from the Ranji Trophy squad on grounds of unfitness before calling back to battle it out for the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy.
