Arjun Tendulkar will forever remember the match against SunRisers Hyderabad in the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2023 on Tuesday. For it was the match, when the 23-year-old Mumbai Indians pacer took his maiden wicket in the elite T20 competition. His father and cricket great Sachin Tendulkar was present in the MI dressing room when Arjun scalped the wicket of Bhuvneshwar Kumar in the last over of SRH’s 193-run chase against MI. Arjun was given the last over with SRH needing 20. Ultimately, MI won the match by 14 runs. After taking his first wicket, Arjun talked about Sachin’s inputs on his game.
“Obviously it was great getting my first IPL wicket. I just had to focus on what was in hand, the plan and executing it. Our plan was just to bowl wide and get the long boundary into play, make the batsman hit it to the longer side,” he said.
“I love bowling, I am happy to bowl anytime the captain asks me to and just stick to the team plan and give my best. We (Sachin Tendulkar and him) talk about cricket, we discuss tactics before the game and he tells me to back what I practise every game. I just focused on my release, bowling good lengths and lines upfront. If it swings, it’s a bonus, if it doesn’t, so be it.”
Talking about the game, Cameron Green flaunted his brute power on the way to a maiden IPL fifty before Arjun Tendulkar bowled a brilliant 20th over in extreme pressure as Mumbai Indians defeated Sunrisers Hyderabad by 14 runs for their third straight win on Tuesday. Green (64 not out off 40) and Tilak Varma (37 off 17) fired Mumbai Indians to a challenging 192 for five after being put in to bat.
With the odd ball not coming on to the bat, it was tough to get the boundaries from the get go but Sunrisers recovered from an ordinary powerplay to take the game deep with the help of opener Mayank Agarwal (48 off 41) and Heinrich Klaasen (36 off 16).
In the end, they fell short and were all out for 178 in 19.5 overs for their third defeat in five games.
While Agarwal got some much-needed runs, it was Klaasen’s knock that put Mumbai under pressure. The South African took the attack to veteran leggie Piyush Chawla, reverse sweeping him for a four and six in a 21-run over.
Sunrisers needed 60 off the last 30 balls and Marco Jansen (13 off 6) and Washington Sundar (10 off 6) made the game interesting with a string of boundaries before the latter paid the price for casual running between the wickets.
Playing his second IPL game, Tendulkar again bowled two overs with the new ball before returning to bowl the high pressure final over with Sunrisers needing 20 runs.
Tendulkar chose to bowl full and wide and was able to do the job for his team. He got his maiden IPL wicket in the process.
With PTI inputs
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