Australian great Ricky Ponting, who is currently the head coach of Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Delhi Capitals (DC), heaped praise on young Indian batter, Prithvi Shaw. The 22-year-old DC opener has been in good form in the ongoing IPL season and hit a quickfire 29-ball 51 against Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) to help his side to a big total of 215 runs.
Ponting believes that he can transform Shaw into a player who can represent India in over 100 Test matches. "If I look at Prithvi's play, he has got every bit as much talent as I had if not more, and I want to be able to turn him into a player that plays over 100 Test matches for India and represents his country as much as possible," the 47-year-old said during a podcast with DC.
The former Australian skipper has been around in the IPL since the league's inception. He started with KKR, before joining Mumbai Indians (MI). He went on to coach the five-time champions to two of their trophies in 2015 and 2017. In 2018, he joined the erstwhile Delhi Daredevils and stayed on to become the head coach of Delhi Capitals, guiding them to the final in IPL 2020.
Having rubbed shoulders with many of India's rising stars, Ponting reiterated that players he has coached before have gone on to shine for the national team, "If I look back through the teams that I've been around when I took over Mumbai Indians, Rohit was very young, Hardik Pandya hadn't played, Krunal hadn't played. A lot of the guys that I have coached there have gone on to play cricket for India and that's what I want to do here."
In four matches played in IPL 2022, Shaw has been in fine form, scoring 38 against MI, 10 vs Gujarat Titans (GT). These were followed by back-to-back fifties against Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) and KKR scoring 61 and 51 respectively.
Shaw and Warner hit 51 and 61 runs respectively on Sunday (April 10) as DC decimated the KKR bowling lineup to post the highest score of the 2022 IPL season (215). They were helped in the bowling department by former KKR spinner Kuldeep Yadav, who picked up four wickets to ensure that the Capitals won by 44 runs.
