23-year-old Arjun Tendulkar got to make his IPL debut on Sunday. Rohit Sharma handed the young pacer his MI debut cap ahead of their game against Kolkata Knight Riders at the Wankhede stadium.
Arjun Tendulkar replaced Rohit in the XI as the MI captain was down with a stomach bug.
He has been with Paltan since 2021 as a player, but remained on the bench. Finally, he got his maiden IPL cap on Sunday. The 23-year-old has been bowling with great intensity in the nets and now finally gets the reward of his hard work in the past year.
Arjun played the last domestic season for Goa after moving away from Mumbai.
He has a decent record in domestic cricket: 12 wickets in 7 first-class matches; 8 wickets in 7 List-A matches; 10 wickets in 7 SMAT 2023 T20 matches. Like his father Sachin Tendulkar, Arjun also hit a century on his Ranji Trophy debut last year.
Arjun Tendulkar-Sachin Tendulkar make a unique record in IPL
Arjun Tendulkar and Sachin Tendulkar became the first ever father-son pair to have appeared in IPL. And both played for the same franchise, Mumbai Indians.
Sachin Tendulkar was with MI from 2008 to 2013. A decade later, Sachin’s son, Arjun, made his MI debut.
MI tweeted about this record:
ℍ𝕀𝕊𝕋𝕆ℝ𝕐!! 🤩
𝐒𝐚𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧 𝐓𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐤𝐚𝐫 and 𝐀𝐫𝐣𝐮𝐧 𝐓𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐮𝐥𝐤𝐚𝐫 are the first father-son pair to play in IPL. 🫶#OneFamily #ESADay #MIvKKR #MumbaiMeriJaan #MumbaiIndians #IPL2023 #TATAIPL @ril_foundation @sachin_rt pic.twitter.com/AnL3L7Q0K7
— Mumbai Indians (@mipaltan) April 16, 2023
Meanwhile, Suryakumar Yadav won the toss and elected to field first.
He said, “Will love to bowl first, the wicket looks dry. The ball comes on to the bat nicely later. Rohit is out, he has a stomach bug. Time to put up a good show. We are going with one change, Duan Jansen comes in, rest all is same.”
Nitish Rana said: “We were going to bat first anyways. The mood in the dressing room is good, need to improve our bowling. We believe we can chase 200-210. The ball might turn in the second innings I think. One player can’t win you a tournament, it’s a team sport. It’s good for us, that everyone is scoring runs. We’ll target to score around 180 on this wicket, we are playing with the same team.”
Teams:
KKR (Playing XI): Rahmanullah Gurbaz(w), Venkatesh Iyer, N Jagadeesan, Nitish Rana(c), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Shardul Thakur, Umesh Yadav, Lockie Ferguson, Varun Chakaravarthy
MI (Playing XI): Ishan Kishan(w), Cameron Green, Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav(c), Tim David, Nehal Wadhera, Arjun Tendulkar, Hrithik Shokeen, Piyush Chawla, Duan Jansen, Riley Meredith
