Arjun Tendulkar included in Under 16 West Zone Squad for inter-zonal tournament

Arjun Tendulkar is selected in the Under 16 West Zone Squad

Indian batting legend Sachin Tendulkar’s son Arjun, who is a regular member of the Mumbai Under 16 team, has been included in the U-16 West Zone squad for the inter-zonal tournament to be played at Hubli from 24 May. Arjun, who had made his debut at the national level in January 2011 in the Cadence Trophy in Pune, will look to use this opportunity to show his mettle. O M Bhosale will lead the team for the tournament which concludes on 6 June. The squad, announced by Baroda Cricket Association secretary Snehal Parikh, was selected by the All India Junior Selection Committee on Monday.

The chairman Rakesh Parikh presided over the meeting and the selection committee comprises coaches Tushar Arothe, Shantanu Sugwekar, Samir Dighe and J Krishna Rao was also present at the meeting to give their verdicts. They picked the following team for the upcoming tournament.

U-16 West Zone Squad

OM Bhosale (Captain), Vasudev Patil, Suved Parker, Smit Patel, Sanpreet Bagga, Yashashvi Jaiswal, Divyansh Saxena, Neel Jadhav (Wk), Arjun Tendulkar, Yogesh Dongre, Atharva Ankolekar, Suraj Suryal, Siddharth Desai, Akash Pandey and Mukund Sardar. 

The committee has also kept 5 players as standbys and they can come in if any player gets injured.

Standbys: Kiran More, Satyalakshaya Jain, Nihar Bhuyan, Vignesh Solanki, Vaibhav Patil. 

The left-handed batsman Arjun impressed everyone in the  Mumbai Cricket Association's Under-16 Payyade Trophy where he slammed a ton for Sunil Gavaskar XI and followed it up with a four-wicket haul. The left-arm bowler took four for 73 on the second day of the match and also scored 106 runs against the Rohit Sharma XI.

Arjun, unlike his father, bats left-handed and is a left-arm seam bowler. The budding cricketer also trained with the England cricket team in 2015 where he bowled to the English batsmen at the nets. He was also introduced to legendary Pakistan left-arm seamer Wasim Akram by his father and the former pacer even gave some tips to the youngster.

Akram said about Arjun, "He is as enthusiastic as any 15-year-old passionate about cricket in India and Pakistan would be. I gave him some general tips about fitness and wrist position. I told him how to bring the ball back into the right-hander. I told him to practice it for three months and then I promised to teach him how to take the ball away from right-handers.”

Though the famous father has specifically requested the media to give his son “breathing room”, the hoopla around Arjun will not die down for sure given our country’s penchant for overburdening a son with his famous father’s achievements.