Son of the great Sachin Tendulkar – that is the sentence that has so far defined Arjun Tendulkar in the eyes of cricket fans. And the 23-year-old will be keen to change that sentence to perhaps a “good prospective cricketer” or a “utility all-rounder” in the IPL 2023.
Arjun Tendulkar has spent the last two IPL seasons on Mumbai Indians’ bench – not surprising, because he had little domestic experience then – and was retained for the IPL 2023 by the 5-time IPL champions.
Now, in IPL 2023, though, the pace-bowling all-rounder comes as a more experienced cricketer and a more matured person.
Here are 3 reasons why Mumbai Indians should bank on Arjun Tendulkar in the IPL 2023:
MI have to find a replacement of Hardik Pandya
MI had their worst-ever season last year, finishing at the bottom of the table. One of their key missing was an all-rounder – a role Hardik Pandya perfected in for them for 7 seasons from 2015 to 2021.
But they lacked that balance that Hardik provided and struggled. In Arjun, they get a seam-bowling all-rounder who has shown his talent, his abilities in domestic cricketer last season and could well be the major missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle.
Good form of Arjun Tendulkar, both in batting and bowler
Ahead of last domestic season, Arjun Tendulkar made the big call to move away from Mumbai to Goa. He did this after being mostly benched or finding himself out of the Mumbai squad.
At Goa, Arjun flourished playing his first full domestic season. For Goa, Arjun got to play in all three formats in the domestic circuit and impressed everyone with his all-round performances: 12 wickets in 7 first-class matches; 8 wickets in 7 List-A matches; 10 wickets in 7 SMAT 2023 T20 matches.
He hogged the limelight with his bat too: Arjun hit a maiden FC century on his Ranji debut, just like his father, Sachin Tendulkar, did all those years ago.
MI are back to playing at the Wankhede
Being a pacer, Arjun Tendulkar perhaps couldn’t get a better venue than the Wankhede to thrive in. As seen in last season’s IPL and the recent India-Australia ODI, pacers get prodigious swing and seam movement at the Wankhede, perhaps more than any other venue in India.
During the domestic season, Arjun Tendulkar has worked hard on his bowling – his action, his run-up, and importantly the swing and seam movement he could generate. This could, in particular, be a key factor in MI selecting him in their XI and could lead to potential success at the Wankhede, where there is a good amount of assistance for new ball bowlers, as was seen in last year’s IPL, in which fast bowlers bowling in the powerplay were really threatening at the Wankhede.
As the IPL returns to its traditional home-and-away format in India for the first time since 2019, MI will play their 7 home league matches at the Wankhede and Arjun could have bumper success here
Mumbai Indians IPL 2023 full squad:
Rohit Sharma (C), Suryakumar Yadav, Ishan Kishan, Dewald Brevis, Tilak Varma, Jofra Archer, Tim David, Mohd Arshad Khan, Ramandeep Singh, Hrithik Shokeen, Arjun Tendulkar, Tristan Stubbs, Kumar Kartikeya, Jason Behrendorff, Akash Madhwal, Cameron Green, Piyush Chawla, Duan Jansen, Vishnu Vinod, Shams Mulani, Nehal Wadhera, Raghav Goyal
