The Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA) has brushed aside Prithvi Shaw’s emotional outburst after his exclusion from the Vijay Hazare Trophy squad, asserting that the temperamental batter has flouted disciplinary norms regularly and is “his own enemy”.
A senior official of the MCA, while talking to PTI, claimed that the side was at times “forced to hide” him on the field due to his poor fitness, discipline and attitude.
Shaw had expressed his frustration at not being picked in the 16-member squad for the Vijay Hazare Trophy in a viral social media post some days ago after being a part of the side’s title-winning Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy campaign.
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“In the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, we were playing with 10 fielders as we were forced to hide Prithvi Shaw. The ball would pass near him and he would barely be able to get it ,” the official said on conditions of anonymity.
“Even while batting, we could see he was troubled reaching to the ball. His fitness, discipline and attitude are poor and it is pretty simple, there cannot be different rules for different players,” he claimed.
“Even seniors in the team have started complaining about his attitude now,” he added.
During the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, Shaw missed training sessions regularly after showing up at the team hotel at “Six in the morning” being out for most of the night.
The youngster has defended himself by saying Shaw, who has attracted a lot of attention for his off-field activities and not doing his talent justice by focussing on his game, would not get any favour from such social media posts, the official said.
“You would be wrong to think such posts on social media would have any impact on the Mumbai selectors and the MCA,” he added.
Shaw’s teammate and Mumbai captain Shreyas Iyer too had issued a stern statement on the night Mumbai defeated Madhya Pradesh in the final to win the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy.
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“He needs to get his work ethics right. And if he does that, (the) sky’s the limit for him,” Iyer told reporters in Bengaluru.
“We can’t babysit anyone, right? He has played so much of cricket. Everyone has given him inputs. At the end of the day, it’s his job to figure out things for himself. And he has also done it in the past. It’s not that he hasn’t,” he added.
Shaw was earlier left out of Mumbai’s Ranji Trophy squad for similar reasons in October after which he was given a specific fitness program to work on at the MCA Academy.
