Arjun Tendulkar endured a flop show in Goa's opening match of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy T20 tournament on Saturday. He leaked 48 runs in his quota of four overs and also went wicketless in the match against Mumbai in Hyderabad. With the bat, Arjun hit a 4-ball 9 as Goa lost to Mumbai by 26 runs. Arjun, who is the son of batting great Sachin Tendulkar, had a good chance to put the Indian Premier League (IPL) franchises on alert ahead of the two-day mega auction.
The IPL 2025 mega auction will take place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on November 24 and 25. Arjun was not retained by the Mumbai Indians (MI) ahead of the auction.
It will be interesting to see if any team would bid for Arjun, who has been decent form decent his recent failure. MI had bought Arjun for Rs 30 lakh, Rs 10 lakh more than his base price, during the IPL 2022 mega auction.
He played four times during the 2023 season, picking up just three wickets. Last season, he only played a solitary match as MI finished bottom of the pile in the league phase.
Meanwhile, during the same match, star batter Shreyas Iyer continued his red-hot form in domestic cricket as he smashed a blistering century for Mumbai.
Iyer has entered the auction after being released by KKR, despite the player leading the franchise to their first IPL title in a decade. He is part of the Marquee Set 1, and is likely to fetch a big IPL contract at the auction.
During the match against Goa, Iyer smashed a fine 130* in just 57 balls, with 11 fours and 10 sixes. His runs came at a strike rate of 228.07. His knock helped Mumbai reach 250/4 in their 20 overs after being put to bat first by Goa. Goa is given a huge task of overtaking this mammoth total in the second innings.
Iyer has displayed solid form in domestic cricket after some setbacks in his career.
(With ANI Inputs)