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Rediff.com  » Cricket » Shaw opens up about his ban, calls it 'difficult time'

Shaw opens up about his ban, calls it 'difficult time'

By Rediff Cricket
May 24, 2021 12:47 IST
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'I remember looking around thinking about the perception of my image. Would people see me as a consumer of banned drugs and substances?'

Prithvi Shaw

IMAGE: Prithvi Shaw had a terrific outing in the Indian Premier League 2021. Photograph: Prithvi Shaw/Twitter

India opener  Prithvi Shaw recalled the cough syrup fiasco from 2019 and described it as a 'difficult' phase of his life. The Mumbai youngster dealt with a career hiccup after inadvertently ingesting a prohibited substance, commonly found in cough syrups.

Recently Shaw had a terrific outing in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2021.

The Delhi Capitals opener scored 308 runs from 8 games at a strike rate of 166.49. He was placed fourth in the Orange Cap list before the tournament was indefinitely postponed due to a surge in COVID-19 cases in its bio-bubble.

 

Prithvi has been in a rich vein of form lately and is enjoying his game but there was a time when he had to suffer an 8-month ban for failing a dope test during Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy 2019. As a result, he missed out on the Test series against Bangladesh and South Africa at home and wasn’t a part of India's Test set-up for more than a year.

In a conversation with Cricbuzz, Shaw called it a ‘difficult time’. He revealed that he was down with a cold and fever while playing the domestic tournament. That’s when his father suggested him to take cough syrup.

“I think dad and I are responsible for this. We were in Indore for the Mushtaq Ali Trophy and I was unwell, down with cough and cold. I’d gone out for dinner that day and I remember telling dad about my cough situation. He asked to get a cough syrup and I procured it over the counter of a medical store without consulting the physio which was a grave error and shouldn’t have happened,” Shaw told Cricbuzz.

“I took the cough syrup for two days and the third day was my dope test where they detected some banned substance. I only got to know about it post the IPL,” he added.

Prithvi further spoke about how he dealt with what people thought about him. The Mumbai batsman also expressed the feeling of facing a sudden downfall in his career after a good start.

“I can't express them in words. That was a really difficult phase. I remember looking around thinking about the perception of my image. Would people see me as a consumer of banned drugs and substances? I would sit at home and think for hours. But then I went to London for a bit because I wasn’t unable to handle that situation here. While in London too, I didn’t step out of my room for a month,” Prithvi said.

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