Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar's son Arjun Tendulkar finally received his maiden IPL cap when he was named in the Mumbai Indians' Playing XI for the match against Kolkata Knight Riders at the Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. The left-arm fast bowling all-rounder will play his first IPL match with his father Sachin in the dugout and sister Sara Tendulkar also present at the stadium. Arjun is making his debut under Suryakumar Yadav who is leading the side with regular captain Rohit Sharma having caught up an illness.
Arjun has so far played 7 matches in his first-class career in which he has scalped 12 wickets. In his List A career, the lanky left-bowler has 8 wickets from 7 games. Other than his bowling, he can be more than a handy with the bat.
After the Mumbai Indians won the toss and elected to bowl first, Tendulkar was handed the first over of the match with the new ball and was quick to impress with his line and length as he conceded four runs from it and even had a good LBW shout against KKR opener N Jagadeesan. However, the umpire did not rule it out and the team opted against taking a review so early in the match.
Tendulkar would have to leave the expectation that surname behind with his father being not only one of the franchise's great but also someone who is regarded as among the all-time greats in world cricket. However, unlike his father who was a shot-heighted right-handed batter, Arjun brings different skills to the table making chances of comparions between the two less likely.
Playing XIs:
MI: Cameron Green, Ishan Kishan (wk), Tilak Varma, Suryakumar Yadav (capt), Tim David, Nehal Wadhera, Arjun Tendulkar, Hrithik Shokeen, Piyush Chawla, Duan Jansen, Riley Meredith
KKR: Rahmanullah Gurbaz (wk), Venkatesh Iyer, N Jagadeesan, Nitish Rana (capt), Rinku Singh, Andre Russell, Sunil Narine, Shardul Thakur, Umesh Yadav, Lockie Ferguson, Varun Chakaravarthy