Indian batting legend Sunil Gavaskar recently opined on Prithvi Shaw’s omission from Mumbai’s squad in the ongoing season of the Ranji Trophy 2024. He was reportedly dropped from the team due to fitness concerns and he was also asked to shed some kilos as well. However, Gavaskar also hoped that Shaw wasn’t left out of the team due to his excess body fat percentage. He added that the fitness criteria should be if a player can bat for the whole day or bowl 20 overs as well. Notably, Shaw scored 379, the second-highest individual score.
Gavaskar wrote in his Mid-Day column: “Speaking of domestic matches, defending Ranji Trophy champions Mumbai have dropped Prithvi Shaw from their team that is currently in Tripura. There have been mixed reports about his omission from the Ranji team. If it’s about his attitude, approach, and discipline, then it’s understandable, but hopefully, it has nothing to do with his weight, as one report seems to have suggested. That report suggested that he had 35 percent more body fat.”
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“We have seen in the previous Test in Bengaluru how another player Sarfaraz Khan, whose weight and shape have also been discussed in the public domain, played a scintillating innings of 150, showing that it is not the shape or the size of your waist that determines cricket fitness. It’s whether you can score 150-plus runs and that too bat for a whole day or bowl 20-plus overs in a day. That should be the only criteria of a player’s fitness. By the way, how many players with zero percent or minimal body fat have scored 379 like Prithvi Shaw? I rest my case about fitness,” he further added.
However, Mumbai Cricket Association secretary Abhay Hadap also said that the team management has given Prithvi Shaw a break. He added that the 24-year-old has been asked to work on a few areas by the captain and the coach as well.
Hadap told The Hindu: “He has been given a break. The selectors and the coach have had a discussion with him and have briefed him about areas to work on, including fitness”
