Youngster Prithvi Shaw, who made a return to cricket with a 39-ball 63 for Mumbai in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy after the end of his ban for consuming a ‘prohibited substance’, said that it was hard for him to digest all the things which were going on after his ban. During the ban, he trained at the NCA under the guidance of Rahul Dravid.

“I never thought something like this would happen. I was obviously upset. For the first 20-25 days after I was banned, I was not able to make any sense of things. After that, I stabilised and kept myself mentally strong. Each day was hard. I was desperate to play a game. I was excited about today’s game and what better than a victory. I’ll keep scoring runs; this is my job,” he told Mid-day.

Mumbai has already qualified for the Super League stage of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, and he is expected to be there in the squad for the rest of the matches.

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“This period (of suspension) has been a big learning experience for me,” he further continued. “Obviously, I committed a mistake. I had no idea what I was consuming. In that period, I was alone and was trying to stay away from people and their advice. I kept telling myself that I can get out of this mess and be mentally strong.”

“I got a lot of love and support from a lot of people. There obviously was a period where I was not feeling too well. But then, as the day of my return drew closer, I started to get my act together. If I had gone into my shell at that point of time, I would have felt pressure during the game. I committed a small mistake, now all that is in the past,” he said.

While speaking about the time he spent at the NCA during his ban, Prithvi Shaw said, “A lot of focus was on training under Rahul sir’s guidance. I had to clear the yo-yo test. What also helped was that during the practice nets, good bowlers like Kuldeep Yadav, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Varun Aaron were available and Rahul sir was always there for guidance and sorting out mental issues.”