With the 14th edition of the Indian Premier League starting on 9th April, one of the star players of Delhi Capitals, Prithvi Shaw recalled his memories with Ricky Ponting and said that whenever Ricky Ponting speaks, Prithvi is reminded of Chakde India and the role of Shah Rukh Khan in that movie. Ponting is currently the head coach of Delhi Capitals and shares a good rapport with the youngsters in the team.
During a recent video interview shared by the Delhi Capitals on their youtube channel, Prithvi Shaw revealed that when Ponting gives his speeches he gets a proper Chakde India feeling. “When Ricky sir speaks, the songs play in the background, the Shahrukh Khan song,” said Shaw.
It must be noted that Chakde India is a popular Bollywood movie where SRK plays the role of a hockey coach and how his inspirational coaching style helps the Indian Women’s hockey team to win a Hockey World Cup. During the course of the movie, Shahrukh Khan gives several motivational speeches, none better than the “Sattar Minute speech” in the team locker room.
Shaw said that Ponting is not only the boss in the team but a reassuring figure on the field and a friend off it which helps the players keep a good mental space.
“The boss is back. He is a very nice person. On the field he's like a boss, off the field he's like a friend. I am very happy he is back and let's see how it goes," commented Shaw during the interview.
Not long ago, Ponting revealed the work ethics of Prithvi Shaw during an interview with cricket.com.au. Ponting recalled how Shaw reiterated from batting in the nets when he wasn’t scoring many runs in the previous edition of the tournament. He had also called Shaw one of the most talented players he has ever come across.
“He [Prithvi Shaw] had an interesting theory on his batting last year – when he's not scoring runs, he won't bat, and when he is scoring runs, he wants to keep batting all the time,” Ponting said.
“He had four or five games where he made under 10 and I'm telling him, ‘We have to go to the nets and work out (what's wrong)’, and he looked me in the eye and said, ‘No, I’m not batting today’. I couldn’t really work that out," Ponting further added.
Shaw comes into the IPL on the back of a stupendous run in the Vijay Hazare Trophy. He smashed more than 800 runs in just 8 matches with 4 hundreds under his belt including a double century. He looked in complete command and will definitely look to make an impact come IPL 14.