For someone who marked his Team India debut with a brilliant hundred, Prithvi Shaw currently looks like a pale shadow of the promising young batsman that captured the imagination of fans. After a dismal outing in IPL 2020, Shaw can't seem to shake off his rusty form as failures continue to follow Down Under.

The right-hander was expected to lose his opening spot after mediocre performances in the warm-up matches. But, despite the Indian team management persisting with him, Shaw couldn't do much in the 1st Test against Australia to repay their faith. Bowled in both the innings for disappointing scores of 0 and 4, Shaw failed miserably in negating the challenge of the Aussie quicks.

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Falling prey to in-swingers, with poor footwork spelling his doom, on both occasions, Shaw attracted criticism from cricket fans and pundits alike. Social media was abuzz with calls, from Indian cricket fans, for his axing getting stronger. Amid all the criticism, the 21-year-old gave everyone a rare glimpse of his champion mindset with a cryptic post on social media.

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Answering his critics with an Instagram story, Shaw shared a motivational quote which read: "If sometimes people demotivate you for something you try to do, that means you can do that but they can't".

Talking about Shaw's struggles, Delhi Capitals coach Ricky Ponting highlighted a key weakness in the Indian opener's batting. "You can see that he's trying to make a slight adjustment in the second innings, the gap's not as big, but the problem and the worry are that his front foot is not planted. His front foot's still in the air. He's late on the ball, he's late moving his weight into the ball," Ponting said on 7 Cricket.

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"If he actually gets a full stride over there, that eliminates that gap between pad and bat. You can see his foot off the ground. He makes about three movements with his front foot but his front foot doesn't actually go anywhere," the Oz legend added.

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