'To drop Prithvi Shaw on the basis of one Test match was tough' - Ashish Nehra slams Indian selectors

Ashish Nehra has criticized the decision by Indian selectors of dropping Prithvi Shaw from the Test team for one bad performance. Even after performing quite well in the Indian Premier League 2021, Shaw couldn’t find his way back into the Indian Test squad which was announced for the ICC World Test Championship final and five Tests in England. 

Last year, due to struggling form and issues with technique, Shaw was dropped from the Indian Test XI after scoring 0 and 4 in the first Test against Australia. After that match in Adelaide, Shaw didn’t feature in any matches in the Test series. He was dropped from the home series against England as well. 

However, during his time away from the national team, Shaw managed to fix the issues which he had with his technique and came back strongly. In the Vijay Hazare Trophy, he had a record-breaking season with more than 800 runs. He followed that up with 308 runs in the IPL 2021, in eight matches, with an average of 38.50 and a strike rate of 166.48. 

Nehra talked about the Indian team management, which dropped Shaw after just one bad match. “As far as technique is concerned, for any player, it is difficult to adjust. Even during the Adelaide Test, he wasn’t a player who had a lot of experience or played 30-40 Test matches. We were talking about a youngster. To drop him on the basis of one Test match was tough,” Nehra told Cricbuzz.

Last year’s IPL, I felt, Shaw shouldn’t have been dropped: Ashish Nehra 

Last year, during the IPL, Delhi Capitals dropped Shaw after he didn’t get runs in some of the matches. This even meant that he missed out on the XI in the IPL 2020 final. Ajinkya Rahane replaced him in the XI and Nehra believes that to be a wrong decision. The former Indian pacer said that explosive players like Shaw should be back ahead of someone like Rahane. 

“It’s one thing that India went on to win the series but even then, I felt that he shouldn’t have been benched after one Test match. Even during last year’s IPL, I felt he shouldn’t have been dropped. He played a few good innings but couldn’t score runs. But I will always back a player who has more runs than Rahane when you talk of T20 cricket. I’m not saying that Rahane is not a good player, but in T20 cricket you need explosive players like Shaw, Pant, Stoinis and Hetmyer,” Nehra asserted.

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