Prithvi Shaw

Prithvi Shaw is not the first young Mumbai batter to get heads turning in cricket, and he most certainly won't be the last. A precocious child prodigy, Shaw created a bit of a stir in the Indian cricketing fraternity with a manic display of batting in Mumbai's Harris Shield as a mere 14-year-old - an unprecedented 546, the highest score in any competitive cricket at the time in more than a century until surpassed by one Pranav Dhanawade in 2016. Since then, he was on the radar of several talent scouts in the Indian cricketing circuit. He didn’t disappoint the expectant aficionados of the game either, scoring truckloads of runs in school cricket and forcing his way up the ranks of junior cricket with the sheer weight of runs.

His Harris shield performance was followed by several others of note, including centuries on debut in both the Ranji Trophy (2016-17) and Duleep Trophy (2017) - a feat previously achieved only by the great Sachin Tendulkar, thereby drawing comparisons of great magnitude with the little master and being hailed as one of the future batting mainstays of Indian cricket. After skyrocketing through grade and age-level cricket, he was declared the captain of the Indian U-19 side for the 2018 U19 World Cup in New Zealand. With a capable leader in Shaw, a stellar bowling line-up, and under the keen eye of Rahul Dravid, India coasted to the title, as Shaw contributed handsomely with the bat, scoring 261 runs at an average of 65 with 2 fifties to his name.

Having lost his mother at a young age, Shaw's responsibility fell entirely on his father, Pankaj Shaw, who gave up his business and moved to Mumbai from Virar in 2006 in a bid to get Shaw closer to the MIG ground in Bandra. In 2010, retired Mumbai spinner Nilesh Kulkarni spotted Shaw and got his sports management company to sign him up for INR 300,000 per annum. The off-field battles hardened young Shaw at a tender age and he clearly carried the latent mental toughness into cricket which translated into truckloads of runs at the first-class level.