After Indian cricket team recently registered a 2-0 series victory over a dilapidated West Indies side, former Indian captain and the team's current's coach Ravi Shastri eulogized his side's new-found series-hero Prithvi Shaw with a slew of superlatives. 

An overwhelmed Shastri remarked, “There's a bit of Sachin (Tendulkar) there, a bit of Viru (Sehwag) in him and when he walks – there's a bit of (Brian) Lara as well.” 

Comparing a 18-year-old boy with three of the legends of the game in one sentence may have sounded a bit outlandish but Shaw's sensational career graph starting from school cricket to the highest level, i.e., the Test cricket, has already made him superstar in the making. 

The debut Test centurion has already become the toast of a cricket-crazy nation like India, known for worshipping its demi-gods like men with the willow bat and leather ball. Many of the global brands in the burgeoning market economy with its rapid growth and robust health have already made a beeline to grab the new flavor of the season. 

But more than his prospective superhero status Shaw may have brought a sigh of relief thrashing the doomsday-mongers of the game. 

Like the age-old adage goes, nothing succeeds like success; it's a time-tested fact that a sport needs a superstar to remain popular among its fans. Thus, it's needless to say that fan-following of any sport is directly proportionate to its superstars. 

We have seen in the past that the lack of superstars has often pushed many sports or sporting disciplines or games into oblivion. 

For example, heavyweight boxing post-Mike Tyson era no longer generates the hype and hoopla it used to generate during the Ali days or subsequent Tyson, Holyfield era. 

If Sergey Bubka's retirement has left the men's pole vault an inconspicuous event, Yelena Isinbayeva's departure certainly made the field event even more unobtrusive. 

The audacious arrival of Tiger Woods had given a fillip to the post-Nicholson, post-Norman era golf before his simultaneous fall from grace and decline in the form made its popularity take a nosedive.  

In fact, the ever-regal and glamorous sport of tennis has also been facing its biggest crisis these days due to its denial of changing with time and also the lack of Grand Slam winners from the new generation of players. 

If the women's tennis has failed to get a consistent superstar out of its post-Williams sisters generation, the big four of the men's tennis has still been reigning supreme over the next generation of players. 

Since 2006, except the big four of Roger Federer, Rafa Nadal, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray, only three players have managed to win a major in all these years. Three-time Grand Slam winner Stan Wawrinka is now 33 years old while single Grand Slam winners Marin Cilic and Juan Martin Del Potro are both 30. 

Similarly, the world of cricket was staring at a similar hopeless situation due to a number of factors. 

First of all, the Indian cricket with its massive financial might and unchallenged administrative clout, have somewhat transformed the gentlemen's game into a monopolized enterprise of its own, along with its almost all-conquering team, led by the most prolific superstars of the current generation of cricketers Virat Kohli. 

Moreover, the massive downfall of the erstwhile cricketing bastions such as the West Indies and Sri Lanka has already dented cricket's relatively smaller global popularity while the gradual downslide or controversy-marred roller-coaster ride of the erstwhile powerhouses like Australia, Pakistan and South Africa have failed to add any latest star value to the game. 

Only a few, including the game of soccer and the basketball player from the NBA, have been standing tall in the global sports popularity chart thanks to the arrival of one after another generation of stars. 

Although the emergence of the new stars from the erstwhile minnows like Afghanistan and Bangladesh have added some muscle to the cricket's might, Shah's arrival has certainly brought a new lease of life to the future of cricket as the generation led by Tendulkar and their successors, spearheaded by MS Dhoni and Kohli, set a higher benchmark for any future cricket superstar alongside a unimaginable burden of expectations of a billion people. 

Hope Shah lives up to the expectations and carries forward his instant superstardom and broad bat to play for cricket's future.