Prithvi Shaw Picked Ahead of Mayank Agarwal to Make Debut vs WI
Prithvi Shaw to make India debut at the age of 18, against West Indies on Thursday in Rajkot.
India have announced the squad for the first Test against West Indies that starts on Thursday in Rajkot and 18-year-old Mumbai batsman Prithvi Shaw is all set to make his India debut.
Shaw will be taking Shikhar Dhawan’s spot at the top of the batting order after the Indian selectors decided to drop the regular opener following his poor show in England.
It was a toss-up between Prithvi and Bangalore’s Mayank Agarwal for the opening slot along with KL Rahul. Agarwal had broken into the team after scoring tons of runs in domestic cricket and at the India A level.
India Final 12 vs West Indies: Virat Kohli (captain), KL Rahul, Prithvi Shaw, Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Rishabh Pant, R Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja, Kuldeep Yadav, Mohammed Shami, Umesh Yadav, Shardul Thakur
Shaw’s Scoring Spree
Prithvi Shaw has been scoring runs consistently in the first-class circuit since his debut in January, 2017. He started off with a bang, scoring 120 runs against Tamil Nadu.
The 18-year-old showed great form while playing Test matches for India A. He notched scores of 188 and 136 against West Indies A and South Africa A respectively.
The Mumbai batsman, who was part of the Test squad for the last two matches of the India-England series, scored 129 runs off 81 balls in a recent Vijay Hazare Trophy match against Railways.
Five Specialist Bowlers
What is also clear now is that India will go in with five specialist bowlers and the most likely 12th man will be Shardul Thakur.
Three specialist spinners -- Ravichandran Ashwin, Ravindra Jadeja and Kuldeep Yadav -- have been picked and the pace pairing will be of Mohammad Shami and Umesh Yadav.
Hanuma Vihari, who had a made gritty 56 on debut at The Oval against England, has been dropped.
Wicket-keeper Rishabh Pant will bat at six while Jadeja will be expected to make vital lower-order contributions in the absence of injured all-rounder Hardik Pandya.
The West Indies series presents a good opportunity for Shaw to make his case for the upcoming Australia tour as pointed out by captain Virat Kohli, who said the top-order is the only area where experimentation is needed.
It will be a dream come true for Shaw when he walks out to bat in Rajkot. The 18-year-old's India debut will hardly be a surprise to those who felt the supremely talented batsman was destined to play for the country ever since he started scoring bagful of runs in school cricket in Mumbai. And when Shaw led the India U-19 to the Word Cup title in New Zealand earlier this year, it was only a matter of time before he graduated to the highest level.
Both Shaw and Mayank had batted in the nets on Tuesday and even on Wednesday morning the mystery remained as Shaw took gentle throw downs.
Local hero Cheteshwar Pujara and vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane spent the maximum time in the nets.
It all became clear with the announcement of final 12 as India took the cue from the likes of Australia, who name their final eleven before the start of the match.
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