Prithvi Shaw collected plenty of ‘youngest ever…’ milestones on his debut in the first Test against the West Indies at Rajkot. He started off by becoming the youngest specialist batsman to debut for India since Sachin Tendulkar in 1989 against Pakistan. He became the second youngest Test debut opener for India. By scoring a 56-ball 50, he became the youngest to score a 50 on Test debut for India. Later, he became the youngest to score a Test century on debut for India. He reached the milestone in 99 balls with 14 boundaries to his name.
Shaw is the 106th player to score a century on Test debut and is the first since Ireland’s Kevin O’Brien against Pakistan earlier in the year. Last Indian to achieve this feat was Rohit Sharma, also against West Indies in 2013. Overall, 15 India players have scored centuries on Test debut. Earlier, Shaw became the fifth youngest opener to a score a 50 on Test debut behind – Hanif Mohammad, Jeff Stollmeyer, Tamim Iqbal and Imran Farhat. He is the third youngest to score a Test 50 for India behind Sachin Tendulkar and Parthiv Patel and ahead of the likes of Ravi Shastri and Dinesh Karthik.
The 18-year-old Shaw gave ample evidence of his brilliance with effortless boundaries and confident strokes around the ground. Shaw received the Test cap from Virat Kohli in the morning to become the 293rd cricketer to represent India and showed supreme confidence from ball one.
