The next Sachin Tendulkar? Mumbai schoolboy Prithvi Shaw hits record 546 in Under-16 Harris Shield match

In a school-level tournament at Azad Maidan on Wednesday, Prithvi Shaw scored a 330-ball 546 in a single innings to re-write the record books of Mumbai cricket. Representing Rizvi Springfield, Shaw drove the St Francis D'Assisi bowlers to dust on Day 2 of the prestigious Elite Division Harris Shield Under-16 cricket tournament. His knock was laced with 85 boundaries and and five sixes.

Shaw's knock brought back memories of the mammoth 664-run Harris Shield partnership between Vinod Kambli (349) and Sachin Tendulkar (326) for Shardashram Vidyamandir at the very same ground in February 1988.

On Wednesday, Shaw's record 546 erased Armaan Jaffer's 473, scored in a Harris Shield match earlier this year. Armaan is the nephew of former Test batsman Wasim Jaffer. Armaan was in the news in December 2010 when he slammed 498 in the Under-14 Giles Shield to break the record held by Sarfaraz Khan (439 in 2009-10). Interestingly Shaw, Armaan and Sarfaraz come from the same school, Rizvi Springfield.

 

An excited Shaw, who is is just fourteen years old, said,"My coaches tell me to be patient and that's what I did. I told my friends not to tell my score, but when I reached five hundred they could not control themselves."

The highest recorded individual score in all forms of cricket is 628 not out by Arthur Collins, a 13-year-old schoolboy playing in a Junior House Match in June, 1899 in England. Collins was an Englishman born in India, but never went on to play first-class cricket. The second highest recorded score is 566 by Australian Charles Eady in 1901.

At the end of Day 1 on Tuesday, Shaw was unbeaten on 257 in just 166 balls including 27 boundaries and three sixes. Rizvi Springfield coach Raju Pathak had then indicated that Shaw would be given the freedom to score 400. The youngster though went one better and scored 500!