[Pictures] India captain Ruturaj Gaikwad seeks blessings from Lord Ganesha in Pune ahead of Asian Games 2023
Ruturaj Gaikwad, India captain for the Asian Games, visited the Shreemant Dagdusheth Ganpati Mandir in Pune to seek the blessings of Lord Ganesha on Tuesday, September 26.
In several pictures doing rounds on X (formerly known as Twitter), Gaikwad can be seen clad in an ethnic outfit while performing aarti (rituals) at the temple.
Take a look at the pictures below:
Gaikwad has been rested for the third ODI between India and Australia at Rajkot ahead of the Asian Games. The right-handed batter smashed 71 runs off 77 balls, including 10 boundaries in the first ODI, which the Men in Blue won by five wickets.
The 26-year-old, though, departed cheaply for eight runs off 12 deliveries in a batting-friendly deck in the second ODI in Indore. India, however, won the game by 99 runs via the DLS method.
Gaikwad had previously scored unbeaten 19 and 58 in the two T20Is in Ireland, which India won 2-0.
The opener has been excellent with bat for Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the Indian Premier League (IPL), scoring 1797 runs in 52 games at a strike rate of 135.52, including one ton and 14 half-centuries.
Gaikwad will now look to repeat India Women’s heroics by winning gold in the T20 tournament. Harmanpreet Kaur and Co. beat Sri Lanka by 19 runs in the final.
The Men in Blue will play their first game in the quarterfinals (qualified via T20I rankings) at Pingfeng Campus Cricket Field in Hangzhou, China on October 3. The semi-finals and final will take place at the same venue on October 6 and 7, respectively.
Ruturaj Gaikwad shares words of wisdom from MS Dhoni ahead of his captaincy debut
Ruturaj Gaikwad recently shared former India skipper MS Dhoni’s words of wisdom ahead of his captaincy debut. He will now look to repeat the latter’s heroics by winning the Asian Games in his first tournament as captain. He recently told a press conference, as quoted by ANI:
“I think leadership role is a very complicated thing, to be honest. What Mahi bhai always says is to take it one game at a time. Just be in the present moment, don’t worry about the future."
He continued:
"Everyone creates hype and whatever it is. I am not the kind of person who watches social media and hears about what anyone is saying about me. I think this is one of the traits that I have learned at CSK.”
India's squad for the Asian Games - Ruturaj Gaikwad (Captain), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Rahul Tripathi, Tilak Varma, Rinku Singh, Jitesh Sharma (wk), Washington Sundar, Shahbaz Ahmed, Ravi Bishnoi, Avesh Khan, Arshdeep Singh, Mukesh Kumar, Shivam Dube, Prabhsimran Singh (wk), Akash Deep.
Standby list of players: Yash Thakur, Sai Kishore, Venkatesh Iyer, Deepak Hooda, Sai Sudarsan.