BCCI pull injured Prithvi Shaw out of Ranji clash

Prithvi Shaw was in good touch in his first competitive game in more than six months 

Prithvi Shaw has left the Mumbai camp midway through their ongoing Ranji Trophy fixture against Karnataka at Bandra Kurla Complex due to a left rotator cuff injury. He has been rushed to the National Cricket Academy in Bengaluru to assess the extent of damage.

“He underwent an MRI scan last evening in Mumbai, and the reports this morning confirmed a labral tear,” Mumbai coach Vinayak Samant told ESPNcricinfo. “He’s in a lot of pain and is headed to Bangalore to meet the NCA physios. They will assess him and decide the next course.”

Shaw picked up the injury on Friday, when he fell on his left shoulder while backing up to stop an overthrow. He left the field immediately and didn’t return.

“Initially, it was more a precaution to get him off the field and rest him. I wanted him to bat, I thought he will bat even if it meant just going there, blocking and supporting the other batsman, but he wasn’t entirely comfortable with that.

“Then we received an email this morning around 11am from the BCCI to pull him out of the match and send him to the NCA for assessment. Losing him to an injury is disappointing, looking at his own game and from our team’s point of view, because we need to fight for every run if are to set a defend a target against Karnataka.”

While the seriousness of Shaw’s injury and expected recovery time will only be known over the coming days, the timing of his injury raises doubts over his place in India A’s touring party to New Zealand on a shadow tour, ahead of the national team’s six-week tour for a full series.

As things stand, the players participating in the limited-overs leg of the India A tour are set to leave for Auckland on January 10. The first one-dayer is scheduled to begin on January 22, with a few warm-up games preceding the series.

Shaw has been picked across formats following a prolific return to run-scoring ways in November after the completion of an eight-month backdated suspension for a doping offence.

He struck form immediately, scoring 240 runs in five innings, including three half-centuries, for Mumbai in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. He followed that up with scores of 66 and 202, his maiden first-class double century, in Mumbai’s 309-run win over Baroda in their Ranji Trophy opener in December.

The labral tear is the latest in a long list of injuries that have plagued Shaw since his roaring international debut against West Indies in September last year. Picked as a first-choice opener for Australia, Shaw returned midway through the tour after failing to recover from an ankle injury during a warm-up fixture against a Cricket Australia XI.

Shaw’s doping violation for “inadvertently ingested a prohibited substance, which can be commonly found in cough syrups”, came to light in July after he wasn’t named in India A’s squad for the tour of the Caribbean.

Source: ESPN Crickinfo

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