Arjun Tendulkar in action. (FILE)
Goa pacer Arjun Tendulkar picked up his maiden five-wicket haul in the 17th First-Class game against Arunachal Pradesh in the Plate Division on Wednesday at the Goa Cricket Association Academy Ground in Porvorim.
Tendulkar ended up with figures of 5/25 from just nine overs playing a crucial role in bundling out Arunachal Pradesh for 84 runs in the first innings. Neelam Obi, Nabam Hachang, Chinmay Patil, Jay Bhavsar, and Moji Ete have been the victims of the 25-year-old. Before the spell, Tendulkar has picked up 32 wickets from 14 games at an average of 37.75.
After bundling out Arunachal for a small total Goa batters went full throttle against the visiting side’s bowling piling on 414/2 in just 54 overs.
Out of father’s shadow
For years, Arjun Tendulkar has been trying to escape the shadow of his father on a cricket field. When it couldn’t happen in Mumbai, he moved to Goa. Now, he has tasted the feeling of a Ranji Trophy hundred in his debut outing. The journey hasn’t been easy. The surname has had its privileges but it also comes with a burden.
It was a dry monsoon in Mumbai in 2015. Kanga League, traditionally a wet-weather cricket tournament, was being played on the dry, coarse grass in the maidaans in south Mumbai. At one side of a ground, a group of boys sat bantering under a small tent one afternoon. Arjun Tendulkar had just been bowled off an inside edge after swishing around on an under-prepared pitch.
Chai bobbled around in white plastic cups, and a teammate turned around to pass it on. “Eh, chai peeyega?” Arjun shook his head, the boy let fly some snark: “Haan, haan, tu toh boost he piyega na?” It was a surreal moment: The star-status of his father and a popular TV ad featuring his father, providing a real-world dig.
The general perception during this phase was that Arjun was a boy in love with the game but it wasn’t clear whether he had the skills to grade up. The left-arm medium pace seemed decent enough and the batting would be noticeable on occasions. There was nothing dramatic.
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