After not registering perhaps the happiest or most productive stint of his career in the IPL, Arjun Tendulkar, who had been with the Mumbai Indians camp for quite some time, has bid adieu to the famous franchise. So what does that mean and what has exactly transpired? Now confirmed to have left the MI stable, who traded him to Lucknow SuperGiants, Tendulkar junior is all set to play for a brand new IPL side and that may just make things interesting going forward. However, before we delve into what role could the left arm medium fast bowler could play for LSG, who are among the most enterprising, if also, young IPL teams (debuted in 2022), let us look at the 1999-born cricketer’s IPL record. He has played, for some reason, just 5 games and that’s about it. And if that is not a shockingly low number of games, then one wonders, what is? For someone who’s talented and those who still dwell in sarcasm be damned, it is rather surprising that the avid and passionate cricketer was used so rarely by the franchise hailing from his own city of birth that all he picked are 3 wickets. That’s about it?
Now, next up, could Lucknow SuperGiants be the team that does try, after all, and get the best out of the all round cricketer to whom fast bowling comes as naturally as the timing the ball comes to a certain Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar?
We don’t know that at all or for sure, as of now. But what’s rather interesting and warrants introspection is the message that Arjun’s Mumbai Indians ‘family’ left behind for the able cricketer:
“Thank you, Arjun for being a valued member of the Mumbai Indians family. Everyone at MI wishes you the very best for the next chapter of your journey with Lucknow Super Giants.”
If he was a valued member of the set up, why was he played so little and was it that because the team was playing him? Having been a hotbed of serious and interesting talents that are as interesting as they are game changing, remember the likes of Mayank Markande and the likes of Aditya Tare, both of them talented and full of boundless potential, did Mumbai Indians do justice to a boy still very much recognised as “Tendulkar’s son!”
And moreover, can the world finally- ever- wake up from the unfair, somewhere malicious habit of not realising talents for whom they are whilst deliberately foreshadowing an individual in the light of his parents’ presence or aura?
How difficult would an Arjun Tendulkar’s life been, one can only imagine. Yes, he might not be the greatest cricketer born on the face of the earth but did the IPL, saviour of so many careers, makers of so many in the first place, ever do justice- as on date- to a cricketer whose best days could be ahead?
The man often poked jokes at for not even being close to the shade of his father’s giant personality has played 21 first-class matches. Yes, he doesn’t have a lot to show for in that department. But here’s what he has done that perhaps beckons some recognition: 47 wickets from those games at an economy of 3.4, with best bowling figures of 6 for 112, along with 2 four-wicket hauls and one fifer.
In all of 24 T20 games that he’s played in his still largely developing career, nowhere has Arjun Tendulkar ‘failed’ as a cricketer, having clinched 27 wickets from 24 games with best bowling figures that his caustic critics would dread reading- 4 for 10.
The left arm pacer achieved that in a vital Syed Mushtaq Ali game for Goa versus Hyderabad in the month of October, in 2022, to be precise.
That being told, Tendulkar’s journey has also unfortunately been riddled with injuries- in the first year of being picked in the IPL, he was sidelined by an unfortunate injury in 2021. This saw him completely miss out from bowling. Or batting, for that matter!
