England’s preparations for the second Ashes Test continued on Wednesday when Arjun Tendulkar, son of Indian legend Sachin, bowled with them in the nets at Lord’s.
The 15-year-old popped down from his father’s property close to the ground in St John’s Wood to make sure Alastair Cook, Ben Stokes and co were in prime form ahead of the renewal of hostilities with Australia on Thursday.
Arjun, who is the youngest of Sachin’s two children, is a passionate follower of cricket and has clearly inherited some of his father’s cricketing genes as he tries to forge his own career in the game.
The teenager showed no fear as he tore in at Stokes and England’s other batsmen in the nets at the Home of Cricket and received a few pointers from England bowling coach Ottis Gibson.
He caught the eye of captain Cook, who watched on as he bowled at his men on the eve of the second Investec Test. England enter the match full of confidence following their 169-run victory over the Aussies in the first Test at Cardiff last weekend.
As Tendulkar Jr bowled, the Lord’s official Twitter account posted: ‘.@sachin_rt’s son bowled at @Englandcricket in the nets this morning. Only at Lord’s! #LoveLords #Ashes’
Arjun proved he is a chip off the old block when he hit a remarkable 118 from 42 balls for Dhirubhai Ambani International School at the Smaaash Master Blaster School Cricket Championship in India in September last year.
Tendulkar Sr, who scored a total of 34,357 runs in 664 international matches for India and is regarded by many as the greatest to ever pick up a bat, asked in 2013 for his son, who bats left-handed and bowls left-arm pace, to be allowed to play cricket as any other normal teenager.
He said: ‘My son has just started his career and it’s a humble request to let him live his life like a normal 14-year-old, without thinking about anything else but falling in love with the sport.’
But Arjun is already gaining plenty of high-profile admirers, including the Pakistan legend Wasim Akram, who offered a few bowling pointers when they met in Mumbai earlier this year.
They practised before the Indian Premier League match between the Kolkata Knight Riders and the Mumbai Indians.
Akram told NDTV: ‘He is as enthusiastic as any 15-year-old passionate about cricket in India and Pakistan would be. I gave him some general tips about fitness and wrist position.
‘I told him how to bring the ball back into the right-hander. I told him to practice it for three months and then I promised to teach him how to take the ball away from right handers.’
‘Little Master’ Tendulkar watched tennis action from the royal box on Centre Court at Wimbledon on Friday last week and caused uproar on Twitter on Saturday after posting that he was ‘lost’ in the Oxfordshire village of Great Haseley after missing the last bus. He admitted on Monday that his appeals for a lift home were actually a ‘joke.’
