Shaw had a poor run in the four innings across two warm-ups, aggregating 62, and also had a poor run in the latter half of the Indian Premier League (IPL) where he failed to cross 10 in the last seven innings.
The Indian cricket team management's lop-sided thinking while picking playing XIs continued during the first Test in Adelaide as they picked the talented but out-of-form Prithvi Shaw to play as opener alongside Mayank Agarwal even though the high-pressure game was a pink-ball Test, a day-nighter, Indias only second.
Shaw had a poor run in the four innings across two warm-ups, aggregating 62, and also had a poor run in the latter half of the Indian Premier League (IPL) where he failed to cross 10 in the last seven innings.
An experienced campaigner like KL Rahul, who opened the batting during the 2018-19 tour of Australia, could have been an option, but India went ahead with Shaw. Lack of openers had forced India to pick Rahul for the Test squad, based on his IPL performances for Kings XI Punjab at the top, despite him not having made much of an impression at the Test level. Rahul was, surprisingly kept out of the second warm-up for which he was available.
Apart from that, India did not play Ajinkya Rahane, who was the vice-captain in the first two Tests as the Indian team's batting crumbled.
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