By the time left-hander Siddharth Mhatre inside-edged off-spinner Rishi Sharma, for the ball to rebound off his back leg onto the stumps and dislodge a bail, Prithvi Shaw was on 99 and had lost five partners.
He stood hunched over his bat, staring at the ground for a few seconds, visibly disappointed. It was that sort of a second day, where his 111 (141b, 15×4, 1×6) was the lifeline of Maharashtra’s 217 in response to Chhattisgarh’s 252 in the Group-A fixture of the All India Buchi Babu invitational cricket tournament at the Guru Nanak College ground on Tuesday.
When Shaw got to his hundred off 122 balls, he’d contributed to nearly 70 per cent of his team’s total (144 for five). He began his innings in his typical aggressive fashion, contributing 55 off 53 balls to the 71-run first-wicket partnership with Sachin Dhas (10). He hit nine fours in that phase. He played the leg glance to the fine leg boundary off pacer Sourabh Majumdar. He repeated the same shot twice, flicked to the square leg boundary, and edged past the slip off pacer Mayank Yadav. To left-arm spinner Varun Singh Bhuie, he employed the slog sweep once, the cut twice, and the cover drive once.
As four quick wickets fell at the other end, Shaw cut left-arm spinner Shashank Tiwari for a four behind square and swept him back-to-back for two fours to the square leg boundary to go to lunch unbeaten on 77 (91b) and his team on 111 for four.
Post lunch, he hit the only six of Maharashtra’s innings, charging at Tiwari for a straight six. He was stumped when he similarly charged at leg-spinner Shubham Agrawal and missed a ball that kept low and turned away from him.
