From losing his mother at the age of four to his sensational India debut, here's Prithvi Shaw's inspirational story

Many a time, the supporters of Indian cricket have witnessed heroes emerging who though have seemed supermen on the ground with their success, but their story has been as humble and heart-touching as one can imagine. From Sachin Tendulkar to Virat Kohli to Prithvi Shaw, there are similarities in those stories that become special and continue to rule millions of hearts.

The cricketing world is currently celebrating Shaw, an 18-year-old who continued his dominance with the bat in his maiden Test, just as he has done in the domestic circuit so far. Shaw, who was waiting in the wings for some time, hit 134 in 154 balls against the Windies in the first Test in Rajkot to become the youngest Indian to score a debut hundred in Tests.

Success finally embraced the youngster but not before he put in a lot of struggle. Here is one story from his formative days.

A local corporator from the Shiv Sena, Sanjay Potnis, saw Shaw practising at the MIG Club, Bandra, and he was impressed with the young player’s batting ability. However, Potnis turned emotional when he learned about the batsman’s daily struggle. Being an aspiring sportsman himself who could not make it big because of lack of support, Kotnis decided to back Shaw and the latter started living with the corporator’s family at Vakola, according to a Republic TV report.

Potnis used to take Prithvi Shaw to his club for practice at 7 am every day. “There were at least 30 ballers in his club who used to bowl him one by one,” Kotnis was quoted as saying. This routine helped Shaw to hone his batting skills.

Shaw has a different body language when playing

“Whenever he plays on the ground, his body language was different, he behaved like a matured man but once his practice got over & he returned to home then he becomes a normal school going children,” Potnis said.
Potnis has asked his wife to take care of Shaw’s studies for he felt education was equally important.

“We enrolled him in classes for SSC as it is difficult to clear board exam. We only wanted him to pass the SSC exam, doesn’t matter if he gets 35 percent but when he came home with 10th mark sheet and showed it to my wife, we all were surprised as he got 62 percent. He didn’t appear for the 12th exam as he was on tour at that time,” he added.

For someone who lost his mother at the age of four, the Potnis family indeed arrived as a God-sent one for Shaw and he is paying back the debts today.

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