Pankaj Shaw’s phone just didn’t stop ringing. His son Prithvi, playing for Rizvi Springfield, had slammed his way to 546 – the highest score by an Indian in any form of cricket – in the Harris Shield match against St Francis D’Assisi, a school known more for its football team than for its cricket team. First, the bat suppliers called, they wanted to make sure that he was playing with the SG bat (the media would be in soon). Then, his kaki – the grandma who lives next door – called after watching Prithvi on television. Then, other friends and people who have helped Prithvi along the way were on the other line (he had two phones) – they all wanted to know how much he finally ended up scoring. Prithvi, who is 14 and a student of the ninth standard, started the day on 257 off 167 balls (44 fours) and quickly got into top gear. In the first session alone, he slammed over 200 runs. D’Assisi bowlers were tired and in the words of Prithvi, “they gave me plenty of loose balls.” [caption id=“attachment_1240927” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Prithvi, who is 14 and a student of the ninth standard, started the day on 257 off 167 balls. PTI[/caption] Loose balls that Prithvi took full advantage of – by the time his innings came to an end, he had hit 85 fours, 5 sixes in 330 balls and his stay at the wicket had lasted just 367 minutes. It was the kind of innings that had everyone dreaming up visions of grandeur; of another Sachin Tendulkar; of another Vinod Kambli. But Prithvi isn’t even thinking about those comparisons. “My father, my coach at Rizvi, my coach at MIG Club everyone tells me just one thing: stay patient and take advantage of the loose balls, that is all I did,” said Prithvi at close of play after his knock had helped Rizvi rack up 991 in their first innings. “The comparisons are not something that I am thinking about. I have a long way to go to get to that level. I want to play for India one day… but before that I have to work my way up. I only want to think about my game. I want to be myself.” St Francis D’Assisi, who had just won promotion this season by winning the plate league, just couldn’t believe their luck. In the first match of the new season in the elite, they have been shown just how they will need to work. Their captain was an angry guy: “I kept telling them to come for practice but just 4-5 guys would turn up. Now they know.” Indeed, now everyone knows Prithvi. He was already talked about in cricketing circles along with Arman Jaffer and Sarfaraz Khan. Sachin Tendulkar once called him to the MCA club in the Bandra Kurla Complex and gave him tips and he has just been named the captain of the Mumbai Under-16 team. Arman won’t throw his wicket away, Sarfaraz hits with a lot of power but when it comes to the variety of shots, Prithvi is the best. One of his coaches at the MIG club, who did not want to be named, said: “Because he has a lot of shots, he also used to get out easily which is why we are trying to tell him to concentrate on shot selection. This season he got a century against Muslim United Sports United in the senior division, against the big boys and that will give him a lot of confidence.” “The 546 will also earn him the respect of the other boys in the under-16 team. But he needs to be consistent now. The best part of the knock is not the runs but that he stood there for so long and took full advantage of the loose balls. It may sound easy but sometimes you get excited and throw your wicket away.” Rizvi Springfield has given rise to a new breed of the Mumbai cricketer – the kind that breaks record after record. In 2009, Sarfaraz hit a record-breaking 439 in his first-ever Under-16 Harris Shield match; Arman hit 498 in December 2010 in a Giles Shield match, which created a new landmark as the highest-ever individual score in a school match and then followed it up with 473, the highest score in the Harris Shield, in February 2013. Prithvi is just about getting going. “They are not competition. They are my friends. At the end of the day, we are playing on the same team and that is important.” The pressure on Prithvi is immense. At just 14, he is the only bread-winner in the family — his father doesn’t work and has devoted himself to helping his son succeed. So failure is not an option but so far, he seems untouched by the pressure. He works hard and plays even harder. “When I am playing in the middle, I am not trying to think of anything. My mind just goes blank. They always tell me to just play my own game…” And what is your game? “Attack.”