Speaking to JioCinema, Kaif said that Delhi had backed Shaw to the hilt. He recalled that there were numerous days when he and trhen head coach Ricky Ponting would drop Shaw from the playing XI after a flop show, but just befoe the match, they would change their mind and back him yet again for the next game. But the India U-19 World Cup-winning captain never made the most of the opportunity, leading to Delhi not retaining him ahead of the auction, thus drawing curtains on his seven-year stint at the franchise.

“Delhi backed Prithvi Shaw a lot because the expectation was that he is a powerplay specialist and he can hit six boundaries in one over. Well, he did do it once against Shivam Mavi. So there was potential and so we backed him a lot because we though if he can score big, we will definitely win. In fact there were so many times we sat in the meeting and Ponting and me discussed whether we should pick him or not. So a lot of times we would drop him from the team by night because we felt he was out of form following a flop show, but in the morning, just before toss, we would pick him again, thinking that maybe he could score today. But then Delhi moved on and Shaw is to blame for this,” he said.

‘This is shameful that…’

Kaif also reckoned that it was rather shameful for Shaw that no one at the auction placed a bid for him despite the cricketer having lowered his base price from INR crore to 75 lakh.

In his final remark, Kaif urged Shaw to go the Sarfaraz Khan way oif scoring big runs in domestic cricket to earn his reputation back.

“There are so many players who don’t get so many opportunities, but he got a lot. Now the fact that no one bought him at the auction is shameful. Even for INR 75 lakh he found no bidders. He now has to go back to the drawing board, score runs in domestic cricket and then get picked. Sarfaraz Khan is the biggest example,” he said.