Shreyas Iyer hands out tough love to unsettled India star after Mumbai’s victory in the Syed Mushtaq Ali T20 tournament.
Shreyas Iyer has some stern words for unsettled Mumbai and India star Prithvi Shaw after his continuous struggles.
When Prithvi Shaw made a century on his Test debut shortly before his 19th birthday in late 2018, it was evident to everyone that he is a talented player. Since then, he has only participated in 11 international matches in six years. Mumbai captain Shreyas Iyer has stated that he needs to improve his “work ethics” if he want to return to his best level of performance.
Shaw was recently withdrawn from the Mumbai squad during the first leg of the Ranji Trophy because of fitness difficulties and he has since returned to the T20 side during their winning 2024 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (SMAT) campaign, when Mumbai beat Madhya Pradesh in the final on Sunday in Bengaluru.
Shaw averaged little under 22 and batted for 197 runs with a strike rate of 156.34 in all nine of Mumbai’s games. His five spectacular cameos were otherwise separated by four poor scores.
Shaw was released by his IPL team, the Delhi Capitals, earlier this year after being discarded, and he did not sell at the most recent IPL 2025 auction.
“He needs to get his work ethics right, and if he does that, the sky is the limit for him,” Iyer said
“We can’t babysit anyone, right? Every professional who is playing at this level, they need to know what they should be doing,” Iyer said. “And he has also done it in the past; it’s not that he hasn’t. He has to focus, he has to sit back, [and] put a thinking cap on, and then figure out himself. He will get the answer by himself.”
Greg Chappell, the former captain of Australia, urged Shaw to go on a “journey of self-reflection” in a letter he addressed to Shaw last month. However, Iyer asserted that since Shaw “has played so much cricket, and everyone has given him inputs,” “no one can force” him to do anything.