Prithvi Shaw scored just 47 runs for Delhi Capitals in six games in IPL 2023.
New Delhi: Prithvi Shaw’s pre-tournament net sessions had convinced Delhi Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting that a breakthrough IPL season awaited him but he now has to admit that lot of openers in other IPL teams are performing better than the colourful Mumbai batter.
Shaw has been dropped after playing six games and it is unlikely that DC will go back to him anytime soon. “I think it’s 13 games (considering IPL 2022 as well) since Prithvi has made a 50 opening the batting for the Delhi capitals.
“There are a lot of other players at the top of the order with other teams that are playing a whole lot better than Prithvi,” Ponting said ahead of team’s match against Sunrisers Hyderabad on Saturday. Shaw scored just 47 runs in six games in this IPL.
“Prithvi at his absolute best we know he’s a match winner. That’s one of the reasons that he’s a retained player because we know if he bats a certain amount of balls, we win about 95% of the games,” he said.
“But so far this season, he hasn’t been able to produce. I think the six games that he played was just over 40-odd runs, so that’s not what we require right now. So is it a tough decision to leave him out but hopefully the team that we put on the park tomorrow can go win another game for us.”
“When he arrived this year, he’d been at the NCA for quite a few weeks working really hard on his fitness he turned up in good physical shape and his work ethic and training and everything in the nets suggested to me that this might be just that big year for him but that hasn’t worked out just yet.”
Even playing England’s Phil Salt hasn’t worked for Capitals this season. “We needed to try and find a bit of a spark at the top of the order and Phil Salt moved up there the last game but that didn’t quite work as well,” Ponting said.
Ponting is hopeful Shaw can finish things on a high if he gets another chance. “But saying that there’s a long way to go and if things don’t work out with our current top order, there’s no reason why he couldn’t be back in the team and hopefully can finish the tournament off really strongly.”