Boy Wonder Prithvi Trained With Gloucestershire
21 November 2013
Fifteen-year-old Prithvi Shaw, who scored a world record 546 in a recent schools match in India, trained with Gloucestershire during the summer.
The youngster being christened India’s new ‘wonderkid’ played in two second XI friendly fixtures for the county as well as joining in a number of training sessions while studying at Bradfield College in Berkshire.
Last week Prithvi stunned the cricketing world by hitting 85 fours and 5 sixes in an innings spanning 330 balls for his team Rizvi-Springfield in a Harris Shield match against St Francis D’Assisi.
It was the highest individual score ever made in schools cricket and news of it immediately struck a chord with Gloucestershire’s Academy Director Owen Dawkins.
He told this website: “We had Prithvi with us over a period of four or five weeks in the summer and he played a couple of games against Cardiff University and Filton College.
“We couldn’t play him in official second XI games because he was an overseas player, but he scored some runs in the friendlies and took a couple of wickets with his off-spin.
“It was clear he was a very talented player and hopefully if he returns to Bradfield in the future we will see more of him.”
It was in the Harris Shield that a young Sachin Tendulkar first made his mark. Now pundits in India are predicting a big future for Prithvi, who is captain of his school and the Mumbai Under-16 team.
One of the first people to recognize Prithvi's potential was Julian Wood, the former county cricketer who coached power hitting at Gloucestershire in advance of last season’s Friends Life t20 competition.
“It was Julian who arranged for Prithvi to come to England and alerted us to his talent,” said Owen
