MUMBAI: Born in a Marwari family in Virar in 1999, Prithvi Shaw would, at the age of nine, board an early-morning fast local to reach Bandra, where he’d play his cricket in the hope it would help him make a future. His father, Pankaj, had hopes from him.Prithvi lost his mother when he was only four years old, and Pankaj would take him to the local grounds and encourage him to play.One day, Santosh Pingulkar, a Virar-based coach, spotted the boy playing at a civic corporation ground and suggested that he be enrolled at his Golden Star Academy, which the coach had just opened. Prithvi learnt cricket under Pingulkar while studying at the local National School. Then, both Pingulkar and Shaw’s father, a garment trader who’d migrated from Bihar, realised the boy was meant for bigger things and needed to move to Mumbai.So when in Class 3, Prithvi was enrolled at Rizvi Springfield in Bandra, a school with a strong cricket team. That was when the train journeys began, and they would tire Prithvi out. One day, when he was practising at Bandra’s MIG Cricket Club, local politician Sanjay Potnis , then a corporator with Shiv Sena and now an MLA, happened to be there. A friend asked Potnis, a cricket aficionado himself, to take a look at the schoolboy. “I like the game and have played it. When I saw this boy, I realised I was watching something special. My friend told me about Prithvi’s daily toil on the train from Virar. All that travel was taking a toll on his sleep and time,” said Potnis.Potnis decided to make Prithvi an offer. He told the nine-year-old, “If you want, you can stay at my house in Vakola. Talk to your father about it. You won’t have to waste so much time travelling.” It didn’t take long for Prithvi and his father to make up their minds. In a little more than a week, the boy had packed his bags and moved to Potnis’s apartment in Vakola, first staying with the family for many years and then being ‘gifted’ his own room by Potnis at the latter’s office in the vicinity.“He’d go home when he had time but for all practical purposes, our home was his. He is family,” said Potnis, elated that his trust in the boy’s talent has paid off.“I cancelled all work today and stayed back to watch the cricket. I took my shower after the century happened. We’re so happy for him.” “He is like my own boy. He stayed in our flat and later, as he grew older, he required his own space, so he shifted to a room in my office. I wish him a lot of success,” added Potnis. Pingulkar too sat glued to the TV while Prithvi was batting. “The first ball was a dot, on the second he got three runs, and I knew the boy was playing his natural aggressive game,” he said. While Prithvi himself has now moved to a home given to him by Indian Oil, his employers, in Juhu, the Virar coach said Prithvi’s story has now begun inspiring budding cricketers in the suburb.