The young Indian opener, Prithvi Shaw suffered a second-ball duck on Day 1 of the Adelaide Test and it garnered him a lot of criticism on social media, with fans questioning his poor shot selection. Apart from his dismissal, the interesting bot occurred when Ricky Ponting, Shaw’s head coach at Delhi Capitals, predicted a flaw in the youngster’s technique and he got out on the very next ball in the exact same manner.
Ponting said that Shaw has a habit of leaving a big gap between his bat and pad and that is where Starc would target him. As it turned out, Starc exploited the gap and cleaned up the opener as he tried to drive the ball without proper footwork.
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In a video posted by 7 cricket on Twitter, Ponting was heard saying, “He has got a little chink in his armour, I think it’s the ball that does come back in to him. Very comfortable playing the ball away from his body. He does get his head in the line of the ball and plays under his eyes but he doesn’t commit his front foot to the line of the ball a lot. Quite often leaves a big gap between bat and pad and that’s where the Aussies will target. Starc will try and swing one back through the gate.”
"If he does have a chink in his armour it's the ball which does come back into him…
"Quite often leaves a big gap between bat and pad and that's where the Aussies will target." @RickyPonting at his peerless best for the Prithvi Shaw wicket #AUSvIND pic.twitter.com/4nh67zBcpU
— 7Cricket (@7Cricket) December 17, 2020
Shaw’s struggle with run-scoring has been going on for quite some time and even failed to impress in the two warm-up matches he played, but the team management picked him in the playing XI for the day-night Test. While many praised Ponting for making an accurate prediction, others criticized him for not helping Shaw to correct his technical flaws despite spending a considerable time with him during the last couple of seasons in the IPL.
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Talking about the match, India decided to bat first but lost both the openers with only 32 runs on the board. While Shaw departed in the first over, Mayank Agarwal struggled his way to score 17 runs. Cheteshwar Pujara and skipper Virat Kohli both combined to ensure India doesn’t lose any more wickets in the first session.
After the tea break, the duo played some gritty knock and took India past the 100-run mark, but soon Pujara got out just before dinner break.
