Arjun Tendulkar, son of cricket great Sachin Tendulkar, recently emulated his father as he scored a ton on his Ranji Trophy debut. Arjun, who shifted base to Goa from Mumbai to get more opportunities, scored his maiden first-class century on December 14 in a match against Rajasthan. Sachin Tendulkar too had scored a century on his Ranji Trophy debut in 1988, when he struck a century against Gujarat as a teenager. Coming in to bat at number seven, Arjun was out for 120 at the Goa Cricket Association ground in Porvorim. The left-hander slammed 16 fours and two sixes in his 207-ball knock.
Arjun had in September trained with Yograj Singh, former India cricketer and father of Yuvraj Singh, in Chandigarh. Yograj has now revealed, what he told Arjun before training him.
"Just forget you are the son of a legend called Sachin Tendulkar. You have your own identity. Just come tomorrow and start training. I will train you for 15 days," Yograj said on what he told Arjun.
"When Arjun came. I asked him to run 10 rounds of the stadium. He was running fine. Then I asked him to bowl in the nets. The problem was his left arm was very close to his ear while bowling. I corrected that first. He was a quick learner. He learned this thing very fast. He started bowling well," Yograj told Times of India.
Yograj added that one day, Arjun will be as popular as Sachin. "The kid is very talented. His leaving the Mumbai cricket team is Mumbai's huge huge loss. They will realise this soon. They have failed to discover his ability. I trained this guy because Sachin and Yuvi requested me. Sachin was worried about his son. He knows that his son is talented that's why he wants him to be taken care of. When I entered the field, I told every bowler to stop treating Arjun as Sachin's son and bowl at him with a fierce pace and produce the best spin against him. Arjun tonked them everywhere. He is a destroyer with the bat," Yograj said.
"He is an all-rounder. Then why were teams sending him down the order? He is a hard-hitting all-rounder like Yuvraj. I see a lot of similarities between Yuvi and Arjun. He will go a long way. One day, the world will remember his name the way they remember Sachin's name. Arjun will become the most destructive batsman in the world," the 64-year-old further said.