“I enjoyed my life a lot. I went to a couple of destinations to refresh my mind a little,” Shaw said. “Then I came back [and followed] the same routine: I practised, worked hard. Whether it was training or batting, what I used to do, I started doing three times. And I think it was a good break for me. I can’t say that I took a step back. I needed that break to make myself mentally strong.”

“I am a human being; I will make mistakes,” Shaw said. “Obviously, whatever is written or spoken out there, they know only half of it. My family knows me… My friends know in and out about me. In social media or in the papers, whenever good or bad things used to come [about me], I was very young [to understand them], obviously. Everytime you see [such stuff], you come [back for more]. So I stopped seeing them.

“Those things were used to keep me away from all these things [related to cricket]. I had belief in myself. Because I know where I have come from, how hard I have worked. Mistakes are made by humans… It’s okay, move ahead. All that is history, and it happened many years ago… I feel 1774464700 is the time when mentally I get a lot of happiness to come to the ground.”

At DC, Shaw will compete with Pathum Nissanka and Abishek Porel to partner KL Rahul at the top of the order. DC, who had last made the playoffs in 2021, will start their 2026 campaign against Lucknow Super Giants in Lucknow on April 1.