World Cup winning skipper lavish praise on Indian youngsters

Delhi head coach Ricky Ponting has lavished praise on Indian youngsters Prithvi Shaw, Ruturaj Gaikwad and Avesh Khan. Shaw had a brilliant season with the bat last year with 479 runs in 15 games, averaging 31.93. The right-hander carried his form in the preceding Vijay Hazare Trophy and was the highest run-getter with 827 runs in eight games.

The 2018 U19 World Cup-winning skipper was subsequently retained alongside Rishabh Pant, Anrich Nortje, and Axar Patel. Meanwhile, Ponting spoke about the opening batter’s brilliance. “I hung on to one at the Delhi Capitals this year, one of our retained players is Prithvi Shaw, who we saw some absolute brilliance from through the IPL season last year,” said Ponting on Friday.

The former Australia skipper further praised the likes of Ruturaj Gaikwad and Avesh Khan. For Gaikwad, he said that the latter is a technically correct player, while saying that Avesh Khan had a good season for Delhi last year that helped him get into the India squad.

“The other one that I thought was absolutely outstanding and I have only seen him in T20 cricket, but that’s Ruturaj Gaikwad from Chennai Super Kings. He ended up being a part of the winning IPL team, a young guy that got a chance at the start of the season.

“Everyone knew that he was a nice player, more of a technically-correct sort of player but by the end of the IPL, he was doing some amazing things. He is someone who is I am sure going to play all three formats for India in the coming years. On the batting side of things, there are those couple there.

“We have Avesh Khan at Delhi Capitals last year who had an unbelievably good IPL season. He has been included in a couple of Indian squads.”