Shreyas Iyer did not mince his words while opening up on Prithvi Shaw's struggles following Mumbai's victory in the 2024-25 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. Shreyas was the captain of the star-studded team, which included Shaw as well as India's T20I captain, Suryakumar Yadav; T20 World Cup-2024 winner Shivam Dube; and veteran batter Ajinkya Rahane.

Shaw failed to impress as he made just 197 runs in eight innings at an average of 21.88 with no half-centuries to his name. The 25-year-old's career lies at a crossroads after going unsold in the 2025 Indian Premier League (IPL) mega auction.

Once labelled as the brightest young talent in world cricket, Shaw has not played for India in any format since July 2021.

Few people know Shaw better than Shreyas, as the duo have not just been teammates on the Mumbai team for several years, but the 2024 IPL-winning captain also led the youngster for three seasons at Delhi Capitals (2018-20).

Shreyas labelled Shaw as a god-gifted talent but in no uncertain terms called for him to improve his work ethic. The Mumbai skipper claimed that a lot of people have given their inputs to the opening batter

"I think, personally, he is a God-gifted player. The amount of talent he possesses as an individual, no one has it. That's true. It's just that he needs to improve his work ethics.And I have said it before as well in many of the interviews. He needs to get his work ethics right. And if he does that, you know, sky is the limit for him. Can you force him to? I can't force him. He has played so much of cricket. And everyone has given him inputs. At the end of the day, it's his job to go out there and figure out things for himself," Shreyas said in an interaction with Cricbuzz.

"We can't babysit anyone, right? Every professional who is playing at this level, they need to know what they should be doing. And he has also done it in the past. It's not that he hasn't. He has to focus. He has to sit back, put a thinking cap on and then figure out himself. He will get the answer. No one can force him to do anything," Shreyas added.

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Shaw was the captain of the Indian team that won the U-19 World Cup in 2018 and later that year scored a century on his international debut. However, he has played just five Tests, six ODIs, and one T20I in his career so far.

During his seven-year stint with Delhi Capitals (DC), Shaw played 79 matches and scored 1892 runs at an average of 23.94 with 14 half-centuries.

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