Prithvi Shaw signed by Northamptonshire in county championship

Indian batter Prithvi Shaw has secured a contract with Northamptonshire to participate in England’s remaining County Cricket season. He will also be part of the Royal London One-Day Cup, commencing in August.

Following the conclusion of the Duleep Trophy, where Shaw is representing the West Zone, he is expected to join Northamptonshire. Despite slipping in the pecking order for the Indian national team, Shaw continues to excel as a prolific run-scorer for his state side, Mumbai, across all formats of the game.

While he hasn’t played any first-class cricket in the past six months, his impressive performance of 379 runs off just 383 balls in a Ranji Trophy match against Assam in January 2023 stands out. Shaw’s ability to score runs quickly has significantly influenced his rise through the ranks since his victorious campaign in the Under-19 World Cup for India in 2017.

Although he made a remarkable debut in Test cricket with a century, he has faced challenges coping with the high-quality bowling in international red-ball cricket. Shaw’s last appearance as a regular member of the Indian team was in 2020, and he only regained a spot when a second-string side was sent to Sri Lanka in 2021.

In the recent IPL 2023 season, Prithvi Shaw represented the Delhi Capitals. However, he experienced a rough patch, failing to surpass 15 runs in six consecutive games, which resulted in his exclusion from the team. Shaw did make a comeback later in the tournament and promptly scored a half-century.

Northamptonshire competes in Division One of the English County Championship. They have struggled this season, winning only one out of seven games with seven matches remaining.

This will be Shaw’s first venture into domestic cricket in the United Kingdom. He joins a list of four other Indian players participating in the 2022-23 season: Cheteshwar Pujara, Ajinkya Rahane, Navdeep Saini, and Arshdeep Singh.

Shaw is highly regarded in white-ball cricket, where he possesses an attractive skill set and finds it easier to hit through the line of the ball. He has amassed nearly 3000 List A runs at an impressive average of 52.54 and a strike rate of 123.27. Additionally, he has recorded eight centuries in List A matches, including one double century. Former India opener Gautam Gambhir even predicted in 2022 that Shaw could potentially lead the Indian team in the future.