Mumbai: The legendary Sachin Tendulkar’s son, Arjun would make his Mumbai U-19 debut in the Vinoo Mankad trophy scheduled to begin next week. Agni Chopra has been appointed as the captain of the team by the Rajesh Pawar led selection committee.
Chopra would lead Mumbai in their first two matches which are against Baroda and Saurashtra on October 9 and 10 respectively.
The Mumbai U-19 15-member squad includes the likes of leg-spinner Yashasvi Jaiswal and Anjadeep Lad and left-arm spinner Atharva Ankolekar amongst the other youngsters, to name a few.
The 18-year-old Arjun’s performance with both bat and ball impressed Pawar in the selection trials. In an interaction with mid-day, he said, “He will be our main all-rounder. I saw a lot of improvement in his game. When we played in Baroda recently, he bowled well and during our two practice matches here in Mumbai, he bowled and batted well. I consider him as a bowling all-rounder of the team.”
Arjun had earlier played for Mumbai U-16 and had also participated in the ‘B’ division of the recently concluded Dr. HD Kanga Cricket League where he turned up for Parel Cricket Club.
Pawar is however very hopeful of the fact that the team would bring the state, glory and name. He said, “We have a very good team. Most of these players will be playing in under-19 category for the first time. It depends on how quickly they pick up from here. I am confident they will raise the bar.”
The squad-
Agni Chopra (capt), Dhruv Brid (wk), Divyansh Saxena, Karan Shah, Yashasvi Jaiswal, Satyalaksha Jain, Tanush Kotian, Atharva Ankolekar, Saksham Jha, Anjadeep Lad, Sylvester Dsouza, Arjun Tendulkar, Abhimany Vashisht, Sagar Chhabaria, Farhan Kazi.