Arjun Tendulkar withdraws from Mumbai T20 league after consulting father Sachin

Mumbai: Arjun Tendulkar, son of Indian cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar has decided to pull out of the upcoming Mumbai T20 League. The reason being that Arjun is still working on his remodelled bowling action, that has made him feel he is yet unprepared for the tournament.

The left-arm pacer made a call after consulting his father, who understood the 18-year-old’s situation and was of the same opinion, according to a report by the Times of India. Seemingly, Tendulkar has been roped in as the brand ambassador of the T20 League which will take place from March 11 to 21.

Arjun's withdrawal has come as a huge blow for the organisers with further doubts over star Mumbai players’ participation such as Ajinkya Rahane, Dhawal Kulkarni, Rohit Sharma, Shardul Thakur and Shreyas Iyer. Most of the key players could be occupied with the upcoming 2018 Nidahas Trophy T20 tri-nation series in Sri Lanka or the Irani Cup 2018, which is to be held in Nagpur.

“His body has grown very quickly in the last couple of years - you can see the difference in his growth almost every couple of months, and perhaps as a result of that, has suffered two back-to-back stress fractures, which saw him ruled out for almost a year. He’s gone through a lot. Every ball of his is monitored by his coach Atul Gaikwad, a Pune based-coach-cum-bio-mechanist, who has been working closely on his bowling action,” a close source was quoted as saying by Times of India.

Arjun wasn’t fully confident about his bowling action and hence decided to give the T20 league a miss.

“From January 8, Arjun has been working on his bowling action. This is the time to do it since the season has just finished. Right now, he’s at a stage where he’s looking to remodel his action. He was slightly confused that would he have bowled with a new action or stick to the old one, if he had played, and consulted his father about it. He felt that it would be too soon to bowl with a remodelled action because he hadn’t even started bowling properly (with the new action),” the source added.

And a final consultation from dad Sachin was all it took for the budding pacer to stand to his decision.

“Tendulkar advised that if he wasn’t ready to compete, then he shouldn’t play in the league. The batting great felt that the tournament was a stage for him to perform, and not rectify his action. For him, it was important that Arjun takes one step at a time, and plays only when he’s confident about his new action. Arjun is, after all, just 18, and has a long way to go. He then informed the MCA officials today about it,” he explained. It was a big decision, since he had a good season (he picked up two five-wicket hauls and a four-for in the Under-19 Cooch Behar Trophy). Tendulkar himself is satisfied with his progress,” the source explained.