Prithvi Shaw: Have India found the next Sachin Tendulkar?

The sky is the limit for the youngest Indian to make a century on Test debut

Shaw scored his first century and there promises to be many more to come (AP)

Indian batting sensation, Prithvi Shaw, is as known for his humility as his ability but that will be sorely tested in the coming weeks after the plaudits rained down on him like a monsoon after he became the youngest Indian to make a century on Test debut against the West Indies in Rajkot this week.

The 18-year-old from Mumbai has had to wait for his Test debut, held back by Indian selectors looking for the right time to blood a cricketer who has already re-written the Indian cricket’s record books.

But after scoring the first hundred of his Test career in his first innings – off just 99 balls – they might find it impossible to leave him out in future.

Virender Sehwag, VVS Laxman, Sanjay Manjrekar and Harbhajan Singh immediately hailed a performance that will only serve to heighten the hype around a cricketer who has already and inevitably been saddled with the ‘new Sachin Tendulkar’ tag.

Not that it seems to bother him.

Shaw has impressed already (AP)

Since scoring 546 off just 330 balls as a 14-year-old for his school, Rizvi Springfield, in India’s Harris Shield in 2003, the diminutive Mumbai sensation has been identified as a Test player in waiting.

Now that wait is at an end, he appears in a hurry to make up for lost time, despite still being a month shy of his 19th birthday.

Shaw was called up to the India squad for the final Test of this summer’s series against England, an indication, not only of the esteem he is held in but also the struggles of India’s top order against the likes of Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad.

The call didn’t come at the Oval but India’s cricket-mad public haven’t had to wait too long to celebrate his arrival on the biggest stage.

Shaw didn’t disappoint and although this West Indies’ side is a pale imitation of the one faced by Tendulkar in the early days of his career, the prolific teenager won’t give that a second thought.

With seven hundreds in 14 First Class matches, it was hardly a surprise that he scored another in Rajkot - little wonder that comparisons have been drawn between him and Mumbai's original Little Master.

“His grip, his stance, he stays very still at the crease and plays all his shots around the wicket,” said Mark Waugh after watching him play for the Delhi Daredevils in this year's Indian Premier League (IPL). “He plays the ball quite late and is quite punchy in his strokeplay and has an excellent base to play any shot from any bowler. He’s just so much like Sachin Tendulkar.”

Shaw has drawn admiring glances from far and wide (AP)

Jon Lewis, the coach of the England Lions and a man who led England under-19s at a World Cup tournament won by India in New Zealand last winter, has seen Shaw at close quarters and he also see similarities between the two men.

“He’s obviously got a real intent to score but he doesn’t go far from the fundamentals of the game,” says Lewis. “He’s a Mumbai boy, brought up on Tendulkar. He’s a very short man and he has a classical technique.

“A lot of the young Indian batsman have that kind of technique but they have a different tempo that they play at. He plays very straight and he plays very late. He has that back foot punch and the clip off the hip.

“If you were looking for someone to emulate then you wouldn’t stray too far from Tendulkar – and if you’ve got someone that great to copy then why wouldn’t you?

“He’s a confident boy. You play against him and he has that self belief. You can tell by the way he walks onto a cricket field that he feels he belongs there. The challenge for him will come when bowlers have had a chance to look at him and try and work him out.”

The rate at which he’s compiling hundreds at the moment suggests that that time may still be some way off.

He may have missed making a Test debut in this country back in September but England can at least lay some small claim to having played a role in developing his talent.

Shaw spent one summer at Cheadle Hulme School and another at Bradfield in his early teenage years as part of an exchange programme, honing his Tendulkar-like technique on unfamiliar English pitches.

It clearly worked. When he returned here with India’s under-19 side in 2017, he scored 250 runs in two Tests, scoring three fifties in four innings.

He then scored back-to-back hundreds against West Indies A at Northampton and Beckenham this summer.

A score of 62 against Lewis’s Lions shortly after offered a tantalising glimpse of his capabilities.

There is clearly plenty more to come.