IPL 2021: Ricky Ponting shares how Prithvi Shaw refused to bat when he was asked to

The Delhi Capital coach Ricky Ponting has revealed the struggles that Prithvi Shaw was facing in the last season due to bad form. Shaw’s approach was that if he was scoring runs, then only he would have a practice session. The opening batsmen just averaged 17.53 from 13 matches and his bad form continued until the Australia tour in January. Then, he was dropped from the playing and was left from the squad in the England series. But, he returned into form in the Vijay Hazare Trophy 2021 by scoring 827 runs in 8 innings and emerged as the leading run-scorer in the tournament.

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Ricky Ponting on Prithvi Shaw

The former cricketer spoke to Cricket.com.au regarding Prithvi Shaw’s form and strategy in the last IPL season. He hopes that the opening batsman has changed for the better between the 2 IPL seasons.

“I’ve had some really interesting chats with him through last year’s IPL, just trying to break him down, trying to find out exactly what was the right way to coach him and how I was going to get the best out of him,” Ponting told cricket.com.au.

“But he had an interesting theory on his batting last year – when he’s not scoring runs, he won’t bat, and when he is scoring runs, he wants to keep batting all the time. “He had four or five games where he made under 10 and I’m telling him, ‘We have to go to the nets and work out (what’s wrong)’, and he looked me in the eye and said, ‘No, I’m not batting today’. I couldn’t really work that out.” Ponting added.

“He might have changed. I know he’s done a lot of work over the last few months, that theory that he had might have changed, and hopefully, it has, because if we can get the best out of him, he could be a superstar player.” Ponting concluded.

Related: IPL 2021: Ideal Playing XI of all teams for their opening match

Who will be the 4 overseas players for DC in IPL 2021?

Delhi Capitals had a decent outing at the auction with their limited purse capabilities, they got three talented overseas players on their side, who will be included in DC’s incredible squad. Steve Smith, Tom Curran, and Sam Billings were the three buys for them this year. They have a number of experienced overseas players in their team and the four who will make it into the XI would be Stoinis, Rabada, Nortje, Hetmyer/Smith.

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