The son of one of the best Indian batsman, Sachin Tendulkar, has been picked up by Mumbai Indians during the IPL auction. Players from a lot of countries are picked up by various franchises and similarly, Arjun Tendulkar was also picked by Mumbai Indians. At the outset, there isn’t much wrong with the signing. However, there is a lot of difference between signing a player who has played the game at a certain level and a player who hasn’t played any competitive cricket at all. Naturally, the charges of nepotism will raise its ugly head. Let me try to analyse Arjun Tendulkar and the charges of nepotism.
What is Arjun’s qualification?
Arjun is a 21 years old left arm fast medium bowler. He is at an age when a lot of players would have played the game at a certain level. So what is Arjun’s experience? He has a couple of T20s. That is it. Just 2 T20s. This was just a month before the IPL auction. It seems that he played those games only to fulfil a criteria so that he could enter the IPL auction. It seems that everything were arranged for him to be picked by MI. Come auction day, no one else even bid for Arjun and why would they? They don’t know anything about Arjun or for that matter no one knows anything about him. The charges of nepotism will certainly stick.
Mahela Jayawardene says that Arjun was picked purely on merit. If that is the case, why is that none of the other franchise bid for him? The fact is that his father is from Mumbai. He is much respected amongst the cricketing fraternity. Everyone are inclined to believe that he may have pulled some strings.
“We’ve looked at it purely on a skill basis,” Jayawardene said after the auction. “I mean, there is going to be a big tag on his head because of Sachin. But, luckily, he’s a bowler, not a batsman. So I think Sachin will be very proud if he could bowl like Arjun.
Vinod Kambli has come out in support of Arjun
What Mahela says may be true. He is 21 and has age on his side. You never know. He might even become a good bowler. However, the question is, does he deserve a spot at this moment purely based on merit?
I chose to believe that Mumbai Indians have picked Arjun only based on his potential and not because of his surname and that he goes on and provides the Indian team the much needed left arm fast bowling option.
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