Will Arjun Tendulkar Make His Debut This Year?
Five-time champions Mumbai Indians are the first team to be officially eliminated from the playoff race in IPL 2022. With just one win in 9 matches and their playoff chances plummeting to nil, Mumbai now have the window to give more chances to their untested youngsters and prepare them for next season by giving them some game time in their remaining 5 matches.
They have already locked in a number of youngsters – Dewald Brevis, Tilak Varma, Hrithik Shokeen, and Kumar Kartikeya along with overseas youngsters Tim David, and Daniel Sams – who all have performed impressively in patches.
Another player who could make his IPL debut for MI this season could be Arjun Tendulkar, son of legendary Sachin Tendulkar. 22-year-old Arjun is a left-arm seam-bowling all-rounder who has been with MI since 2020. However, he is yet to make his IPL debut. He was re-bought by the franchise for 30 lakh in the February mega-auction for IPL 2022.
In the pre-match press conference, a day before their game against Gujarat Titans, Mumbai head coach Mahela Jayawardene was asked about the possibility of Arjun Tendulkar getting his debut IPL cap.
Jayawardene asserted that everyone in the squad, including Arjun Tendulkar, are good enough to play for MI, but they will pick the bowling attack based on the opposition and conditions. But, he also said that Arjun might be a part of their best combination going forward.
“Well, I think everyone is the squad is an option. We will see how things go. It is about match-ups and how we can win the matches and our priority is to make sure that we get the right match-ups,” Jayawardene said.
“Every game is a confidence thing, we managed to get our first win and it is about stringing wins together and get the confidence back. It is about putting the best guys in the park. If Arjun Tendulkar is one of them, then we will consider it, yes, but it all depends on the combination that we put out,” he added.
Arjun Tendulkar played two Syed Mushtaq Ali games last year for Mumbai, picking up 2 wickets and going at an expensive economy of 9.57. He has also featured for the Marylebone Cricket Club Young Cricketers side in the Second Eleven Twenty20 tournament in Coggeshall, Essex. The pacer recently got his maiden call Mumbai Ranji Trophy call-up but didn’t get to make his Ranji debut.
