India Tour of South Africa: Where is Prithvi Shaw? Have India forgot youngster amid rise of Gill and Kishan?

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The BCCI on Thursday announced India squads for the all-format tour of South Africa which starts from December 10 with the first T20I in Durban. The likes of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma have taken break from white-ball cricket.

Shubman Gill and Ishan Kishan have been named only in the T20I squad. The names of Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Shami are also missing from the white-ball leg of the tour. Suryakumar Yadav, who failed to do well in the World Cup 2023, has also been dropped from the ODI squad.

All the developments have created room for a lot of youngsters and new faces. Deepak Chahar is making a comeback, while the likes of Rinku Singh and Tilak Verma will also found places in the ODI and T20Is squads. Rajat Patidar and Sai Sudharsan have also found places in the ODI squad.

India Tour of South Africa: Where is Prithvi Shaw? Have India forgot youngster amid rise of Gill and Kishan?

But where is Prithvi Shaw? The prodigal batter who made his Test debut at 18 and smashed a hundred in his debut innings to grab the Man of the Match award.

Now 24-year-old Prithvi Shaw hasn't played a match for India since July 2021. His India career is stagnant at 5 Tests, 6 ODIs and a single T20I match. Where is the Mumbai batter at the moment? Why isn't he in the reckoning for India comeback? Has the selectors, management and the fans forgot Shaw amid the rise of Shubman Gill, Ishan Kishan, Yashasvi Jaiswal and Ruturaj Gaikwad?

Prithvi Shaw had a forgettable IPL 2023 season in which he scored 106 runs on eight matches at an average of 13.25. He scored 26, 25, 65 and 7 in the four innings of Duleep Trophy for West Zone. However, he soon bounced back and made headlines with his cracking outing for Northamptonshire in One-Day Cup.

He scored 244 runs off 153 balls against Somerset in the 50-over competition. In his following outing, the opener scored 125 unbeaten runs off just 76 balls against Durham. He was making all the right noise before he injured his knee and had to come back to India.

Prithvi Shaw picked up a knee injury while playing against Durham. The scans revealed that the injury was a lot worse than initially expected. Shaw has been out of action since and did not feature in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2023 and ongoing Vijay Hazare Trophy 2023. He has spent a lot of time at the NCA in Bengaluru where he recently celebrated Rishabh Pant's 26th birthday. A picture of him with Pant at Delhi Capitals (DC) training camp had gone viral.

Shaw has been retained by the Capitals for IPL 2024 and would be eyeing a strong show to grab the attention of the selectors and fancy a chance to get a place in the India squad for T20 World Cup 2024 scheduled to start in June.