After a spectacular debut in whites for India saw Prithvi Shaw earn the Man of the Series award as India whitewashed West Indies (2-0) in the recently concluded Test series.
Although Shaw hasn’t been picked in India’s squad for the first 2 ODIs against Windies, (October 21 and October 24), the opening batsman will find a place in the remaining fixtures of the 5-match series and see himself open alongside vice-captain Rohit Sharma.
As per a report in Indian Express, the team management is very keen to test Shaw as an opener as they want to look at different options leading into the World Cup next year.
Although, Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma remain India’s number 1 choice as the openers, the selectors and the management are very keen to look at Shaw and also keep the senior players fresh.
The discussions were held in the review meeting last week and was attended by the selectors, captain Virat Kohli, coach Ravi Shastri, Rohit Sharma and Ajinkya Rahane.
“With an eye to the World Cup, the main focus was how to rotate players. In fact, more than rotation, it would be more about how to save our key players. That’s why you would see the likes of Jasprit Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Hardik Pandya, Mohammed Shami in and out of the squad, not playing regularly. The players who are important for all formats will be adequately taken care of. Going ahead also, these things will keep happening,” a source was as quoted by Indian Express.
Shaw, who started playing cricket at the age of eight, has aggregated 938 runs from 22 List A games where he averages 42.33 and has a strike rate of 115.37. He also has five fifties and three hundreds to his name in the domestic 50-over games. During the limited overs India A tour of England this July, Shaw was the team’s second highest scorer after Mayank Agarwal with 353 runs at an average of 58.33 at a strike rate of 122.56.
