After going unsold at the IPL 2025 auction, Prithvi Shaw is back at Delhi Capitals for the 2026 edition. Prithvi Shaw wasn’t amongst the runs for the DC franchise in 2023 and 2024 where he scored just 304 in 16 innings and across two seasons. But ahead of this year’s IPL, he feels that the break helped him get fresher and stronger.
Prithvi Shaw on how the break has helped him emerge stronger.Â
Speaking to reporters, Prithvi Shaw said: “I enjoyed my life a lot. I went to a couple of destinations to refresh my mind a little. Then I came back and followed the same routine: I practised, worked hard. Whether it was training or batting, what I used to do, I started doing three times. And I think it was a good break for me. I can’t say that I took a step back. I needed that break to make myself mentally strong.”Â
Prithvi Shaw looks back and comments on his mistakes
Prithvi Shaw was dropped by DC midway through IPL 2024 and was then dropped by his domestic side Mumbai during the 2024-25 season, with his Mumbai teammate Shreyas Iyer saying Shaw needed to get his work ethics right. He eventually left Mumbai and played for Maharashtra in the recent domestic season.
Prithvi Shaw said: “I am a human being; I will make mistakes. Obviously, whatever is written or spoken out there, they know only half of it. My family knows me… My friends know in and out about me. In social media or in the papers, whenever good or bad things used to come about me, I was very young to understand them, obviously. Everytime you see such stuff, you come back for more. So, I stopped seeing them.”Â
Prithvi Shaw further added: “Those things were used to keep me away from all these things related to cricket. I had belief in myself. Because I know where I have come from, how hard I have worked. Mistakes are made humans… It’s okay, move ahead. All that is history, and it happened many years ago… I feel now is the time when mentally I get a lot of happiness to come to the ground.”Â
At DC, Prithvi Shaw will compete with Pathum Nissanka and Abishek Porel to partner KL Rahul at the top of the order. DC, who had last made the playoffs in 2021, will start their 2026 campaign against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) in Lucknow on April 1st on Wednesday.
It remains to be seen whether Shaw gets an immediate chance to comeback in the side or whether he has to play the waiting game. With Ben Duckett pulling out, his chances of comebacj have increased manifold, but it’s not a guarantee yet as both Nissanka and Porel could be ahead in the pecking order to partner Rahul. Saying so, if Shaw can impress the team management in the nets, then he can come back and open alongside KL Rahul.
It all depends on the team management’s perspective and their perogatives as to who they want to partner Rahul. As far as Shaw goes, he has to stay patient and focus on job in hand in order to do well for his side. He mustn’t get impatient in the bench and must bide his time and if he gets the chance, grab hold with it with both hands. That should really be the aim for Prithvi Shaw.
We shall wait and watch how Shaw goes and Delhi Capitals goes because both of them are inconsistent to say the least if we are being brutally honest about it. Both DC and Shaw will want a good season going ahead.
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