Prithvi Shaw shot to prominence as a 14-year old when he scored 546 off 330 balls, an innings that contained 85 fours and five sixes, for his school Rizvi Springfield in the Harris Shield, an age-group cricket tournament in Mumbai in 2013. Shaw's innings was then the highest score in school cricket.

In November 2016, Shaw was part of the India Under-19 squad that won the youth Asia Cup in Sri Lanka. Two months later, he made his Ranji Trophy debut for Mumbai in the semi-final against Tamil Nadu and scored a second-innings century that led his team to victory.

In September 2017, at 17, Shaw became the youngest player to score a century on Duleep Trophy debut, a record previously held by Sachin Tendulkar. He was then named captain of the Under-19 World Cup squad, a tournament India went on to win. During the tournament, he was sold to Delhi Daredevils for INR 1.2 crore (USD 187,500 approx) in the 2018 IPL auction.

Given an opportunity after their IPL campaign flagged midway, Shaw impressed head coach Ricky Ponting with his fearless batting against the new ball; ending with 245 runs in nine innings at a strike rate of 153.12. However, it was his performances for India A, both in England and at home against West Indies A and South Africa A, that gave wings to his India aspirations.

He pipped Mayank Agarwal in the race to be India's back-up opener when he earned a call-up for the fourth and fifth Tests in England in 2018, and finally became India's 293rd Test cricketer in Rajkot against West Indies in November 2018 after India's selectors ran out of patience with Shikhar Dhawan. Shaw marked the occasion by becoming the youngest Indian Test centurion on debut, and just the second-youngest Test centurion for India after Sachin Tendulkar.