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Rohit, Boucher's mixed signals on whether Arjun Tendulkar will make Mumbai Indians debut in IPL 2023
Arjun Tendulkar joined Mumbai Indians in 2021 but is yet to play a game for the franchise. Will his wait finally end in IPL 2023? Rohit, Boucher answer.
Arjun Tendulkar has been part of the Mumbai Indians set-up before IPL 2021 but is yet to get a game for the franchise. Arjun, son of the legendary Sachin Tendulkar, was picked for MI at the 2021 IPL auction for his base price of ₹20 lakh, but chances of him featuring in the Playing XI took a hit when he got injured. The following years, there were clamours for Arjun's inclusion in the team but all he did was warm the benches while the likes of Hrithik Shokeen, Ramandeep Singh, Anmolpreet Singh and Sanjay Yadav all made their debuts.
Arjun then turned to domestic cricket where he switched to Goa and impressed one and all with his batting and bowling. In December last year, Arjun joined his father Sachin in an elite list of players to score a century on Ranji Trophy debut. Arjun, turning out for Goa, recorded the feat against Rajasthan by scoring 120 off 207 balls. His spectacular outing made fans believe that this time around, Arjun may finally get the nod of approval for MI but as it turns out, Arjun's hopes of playing for MI has met with a recent obstacle, which head coach Mark Boucher pointed out when asked about the 23-year-old's chances of making his IPL debut.
"Arjun is just coming off a slight little injury. So he is going to be playing tonight and hopefully we can see him do what he can do. I think he has been playing quite a bit of cricket in the last 6 months. They have been very good for him as a bowler so yeah, if we can have him available for selection, it'll be pretty good for us," Boucher said during MI's pre-season press conference.
Arjun, a left-arm quick, had earlier picked up 2 wickets for Mumbai against Manipur in the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy before switching states to Goa in October. Arjun trained under Yograj Singh, Yuvraj Singh's father, who took the youngster under his wings and taught him following a special request from Sachin. Arjun then had a dream start for Goa, picking up 4/17 against Hyderabad in the SMAT and finished the season with 10 wickets – the second-highest for his team. However, after the century against Rajasthan, Arjun went a tad quiet, with scores of 0, 6, 4, 20, 27, 32 and 13, while registering figures such as 2/27, 2/49 and 2/79 in Ranji.
Even MI captain Rohit Sharma gave his two cents on Arjun's chances, saying: "Good question. Hopefully, maybe," leaving the reporters equally puzzled. With Jasprit Bumrah injured, MI do have a void in their bowling attack, which the return of Jofra Archer can fill to a certain extend. Then again, with quality all-rounders such as Cameron Green and Tim David available, the chances of including a third all-rounder is a quandary MI will look to untangle themselves out of.
