Ponting on Shaw: He looked me in the eye and said, 'No, I'm not batting today'

Delhi Capitals head coach Ricky Ponting said he couldn't get into the mind of Prithvi Shaw and help him unlock his best version in the previous season of the Indian Premier League. The former Australia captain believes Shaw is one of the most talented players he has ever seen and is willing to invest more time on him in the forthcoming edition of the T20 league.

Shaw only managed to score 228 runs at an average of 17.53 in IPL 2020, failing to pass 20 in his last eight innings. The right-handed opener featured in the first qualifier against Mumbai Indians but was dropped for the last two playoff encounters. Delhi managed to make it to the finals but lost to Mumbai by five wickets.

"I've tried (taking Shaw under his wing) the last two years and I've really enjoyed working with him. 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.

"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."

Shaw was heavily criticized for his batting technique during the tour of Australia and was dropped from the Indian side after the first Test. It was Ponting who went after Shaw and even predicted his dismissal in the first Test at Adelaide.

"I was going pretty hard at him. I was basically telling him, 'Mate you've got to get in the nets. Whatever you think you're working on, is not working for you.

"It's my job as a coach to challenge someone's preparation if they're not getting results. So I challenged him and he stuck to his word and he didn't practice much at all towards the back-end of the tournament, and didn't get many runs towards the back-end of the tournament either."

Shaw was dejected after being left out of the Test team, but the flamboyant batsman went back to the drawing board, worked on his game, and wreaked havoc in the 2020-21 Vijay Hazare Trophy. Shaw became the first batsman to slam 827 runs in a single edition of the tournament and he did that at an astonishing average of 165.40 and a breathtaking strike rate of 138.29. The 21-year-old smashed four tons, including a double century, and even led Mumbai to the title. 

"Maybe (his training habits) have changed for the better, because (his success) won't just be for the Delhi Capitals, I'm sure you'll see him play a lot of cricket for India as well in the coming years. He's diminutive … in the (Sachin) Tendulkar sort of mould but hits the ball incredibly powerfully off front and back foot, and plays spin really well," said Ponting.

"If we can get him to take that form that he's just shown into the IPL, it just makes the balance on our Delhi Capital side so good. If (the penny) does drop – I'm not sure I've seen many more talented players than him in my whole time of playing the game."