Prithvi Shaw sets scoring record as he battles the demons of 2020

Suryakumar Yadav is the focus of a redemption story in Indian cricket that can’t wait to take wings this week. After twists and turns in a career where talent was never in question, the 30-year-old batsman is one step from making his India debut in the T20 series against England.

His young Mumbai teammate Prithvi Shaw is meanwhile scripting his own tale of resurgence. Much like, though not in scale, what Rishabh Pant has done to give fresh shape to his young India career.

Two years younger to Pant, the 21-year-old Shaw blasted 165 on Thursday at Delhi’s Palam ground to help Mumbai defeat high-flying Karnataka in the semi-finals of the Vijay Hazare Trophy national one-day tournament.

Opener Shaw steered Mumbai to 322 before the bowlers reined in Karnataka openers R Samarth (8) and Devdutt Padikkal (64), dismissed the side for 250 to seal a 72-run victory. In the final, Mumbai will face Uttar Pradesh, who beat Gujarat by five wickets, scoring 188/5 chasing 184 at the Ferozeshah Kotla ground.

The 20-year-old Padikkal, a left-handed batsman who came into national limelight in IPL 2020 for Royal Challengers Bangalore, was on an astonishing run with scores of 52, 97, 152, 126*, 145* and 101 before his half-century on Thursday. Skipper Samarth had scored 158*, 130*, and 192 in the quarter-final.

But yet both pale Infront of Prithvi Shaw's tally of 754 in seven games at an average of 188.5 -- an all-time record in a Vijay Hazare tournament. Padikkal finished on 737 runs in seven games at 147.4. Both surpassed Mayank Agarwal's 2017-18 tally of 723 runs.

Prithvi Shaw showed signs he had fought his demons and was taking sure steps at winning the battle, mental and technical. The year 2020 had ended on a low note personally for Shaw after he was discarded early in an Australia Test series that India turned on its head to complete a momentous victory.

Shaw was dismissed for 0, 19, 40 and 3 in the two warm-up games against Australia A. Questions about his form and foot movement were already flying and Shaw, opening in the Adelaide pink-ball Test, was out for 0 and 4. He was bowled between bat and pad in both innings, Mitchell Starc and then Pat Cummins exposing tentative foot movement and his tendency to let the bat hang away from body.

That was in the third week of December 17. He stayed in the bio-bubble as his teammates turned things around braving injuries that kept eroding the team. He couldn’t have been faulted if he thought his own bubble, built from his leading India to the U-19 World Cup victory in 2018, was bursting.

Shaw has halted that slide, returning to the quieter environs of domestic cricket to find his footing again. His first knock on return resulted in an unbeaten 105, in a Group D Vijay Hazare Trophy win in Jaipur.

The next four innings in the group stages included an unbeaten 227 against unfancied Pondicherry. When he didn’t get going, Mumbai had the insurance of Shreyas Iyer and Suryakumar Yadav coming in after him.

But with both seniors moving into the Ahmedabad bio-bubble for the T20 series against England, Shaw has taken off again. He smashed 185* against Saurashtra in the quarterfinal in Delhi on Tuesday as Mumbai eased to a nine-wicket victory and Thursday’s successive knock should help reinforce for everyone that the work Shaw has put in since his Australia failures is paying off.

As the last three months have shown, the talent in Indian cricket runs deep, and such consistency, with IPL 2021 for Delhi Capitals to come next, can only help build on young Shaw’s resurgence story.