Mumbai ride on Prithvi Shaw's ton to enter final

Rajkot: When teenager Prithvi Shaw was fast-tracked into the Mumbai Ranji squad for the semi-final, it was termed a brave move although it had its fair share of critics. The 17-year-old opener, who shot into fame when he smashed a 330-ball 546 in a Harris Shield match three years ago, justified the selection on Thursday with a sparkling century (120) as he anchored Mumbai to a six-wicket win over Tamil Nadu and carried the 41-time champions into their 46th Ranji final. Mumbai will meet Gujarat at Indore in the final, beginning January 10.

Seated on a pavilion terrace, Mumbai selectors, headed by former first-class cricketer Milind Rege, were brimming with pride when Prithvi completed his hundred, but not before some heart-stopping drama.

On 99, with the pressure of getting to a milestone mounting, Prithvi tapped a length delivery off Vijay Shankar straight to the gully fielder, B. Indrajith even as the Mumbai dressing room, who were on the edge, was stunned into silence. A distraught Prithvi made a few steps towards the pavilion, but the umpire asked him to wait as he referred to the TV umpire to check the legality of the delivery. TV footage showed medium-pacer Vijay had overstepped the crease and the smile was back on Prithvi’s face.

“I had absolutely no clue I was on 99, otherwise I wouldn’t have played that shot,” said Prithvi.

It took just four more balls for Prithvi to complete his maiden first-class ton. Thus, the young opener joined the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Jatin Paranjpe, Amol Muzumdar et al. to score a century on debut for Mumbai. Of the 13 players who have achieved the feat, only Sachin was younger than Prithvi.

As he celebrated his century, he pointed to the Mumbai Cricket Association logo — a lion crest — on his chest. “When you have the Mumbai lion on your chest, you are inspired by positive thoughts. They always talk about the khadoos mentality of the Mumbai team. I have been taught right from the under-14 level to stay khadoos and only then can you play for Mumbai,” he said.

Prithvi, who was part of India’s Asia Cup U-19 winning squad in Sri Lanka earlier last month, had showed glimpses of his talent with a glorious drive in the first innings and on the final day he made up for the early departure with a mature knock.

The final day’s play, with Mumbai needing 246 runs, began 35 minutes late after dense fog delayed the start. Prithvi shared a 90-run opening stand with Praful Waghela and put on 91 runs for the second wicket with Shreyas Iyer.

“After I got out early in the first innings, Chandu sir (Chandrakant Pandit) asked me to sit with him and observe the match. When experienced batsmen like Shreyas Iyer and Suryakumar Yadav were batting, he gave me a pen and a paper and asked me to write my observations of what they were doing in different situations. That was a good experience,” explained Prithvi.

The youngster dedicated his century to Abis Rizvi, secretary of Rizvi Sports Club in Mumbai, who died in the Istanbul terror attack recently.

“During my school time, he had nurtured me a lot and gave me plenty of things which I didn’t have,” he said.

Scoreboard
Tamil Nadu (1st innings): 305
Mumbai (1st innings): 411
Tamil Nadu (2nd innings): 356/6 decl.
Mumbai (2nd innings): P. Shaw c Natarajan b Aushik Srinivas 120, P. Waghela c Shankar b Aparajith 36, S. Iyer b Shankar 40, S. Yadav c Mukund b Aushik Srinivas 34, A. Tare (not out) 4, S. Lad (not out) 1. Extras: (b 8, lb 1, nb 7) 16. Total: (for 4 wkts, in 62.1 overs) 251.
FoW: 1-90, 2-181, 3-238, 4-241.
Bowling: Aushik Srinivas 23-7-73-2 (2nb), Natarajan 6-2-17-0 (1nb), Aparajith 8.1-0-58-1, Vignesh 9-2-27-0, Aswin Crist 3-0-18-0, Shankar 10-3-30-1 (4nb), Ganga Sridhar Raju 3-0-19-0