Prithvi Shaw Might Have Faded, But His Counterpart Makes Case For Test Call-Up

Jason Sangha captained Australia to the final of the 2018 U19 WC, but it was his counterpart in that final, Prithvi Shaw, whose career took off immediately after that, with the Indian prodigy going on to play Test cricket later that year. 

Sangha’s career did not take off, and it was in limbo for the longest time, with the right-hander averaging in the low-to-mid 20s in first-class cricket while struggling to make inroads in white-ball cricket. 

Well, seven years on, the tables have turned significantly as while Shaw finds himself unable to get a game for his state side Mumbai, Sangha is edging closer to a potential Test call-up for Australia. 

On July 23 (Wednesday), captaining Australia ‘A’, Sangha posted the highest first-class score of his career, smashing an unbeaten double-century against Sri Lanka ‘A’ in Darwin. 

The career-best knock continued the 25-year-old’s resurgence as he’s now averaging 90.6 in first-class cricket since the start of 2024. He amassed 704 runs in the 2024/25 Sheffield Shield season for South Australia, smashing three hundreds in the process. The third of the three hundreds came in the final of the Shield against Queensland as his knock helped South Australia win the Sheffield Shield for the first time in 29 years. 

Impressive Shield performances got Sangha an Australia ‘A’ call-up, and while he scored a duck in the first unofficial Test against Sri Lanka ‘A’, he made up for it today by scoring a magnificent double ton, albeit on an admittedly flat wicket where 485/6 dec played 558/4. 

With Australia short on middle-order batters, a couple of good knocks in the forthcoming Shield season could very well see Sangha make his way into the Australia Test squad, at least as a standby if nothing else.