‘Well Batted Son, One Day You Will Be A Great All-Rounder’: Yuvraj’s Father To Arjun Tendulkar
Yograj Singh, father of former India stalwart Yuvraj Singh, congratulated Arjun Tendulkar and also made a huge statement on the youngster’s future.
Arjun, son of legendary batter Sachin Tendulkar, on Wednesday replicated his father’s feat of scoring a ton on Ranji Trophy debut. He achieved the feat against Rajasthan at Goa Cricket Association Academy Ground, Porvorim. The left-handed batter played a knock of 120 runs including two sixes and 16 fours.
After his maiden first-class ton, Arjun received a phone call from Yograj, who had a brief coaching stint with him before the commencement of the Ranji Trophy season.
“Well batted son. One day you will be a great all-rounder. Mark my words,” Yograj texted Arjun from UK, according to the Indian Express report.
The 23-year-old trained with Yograj for two weeks in September for the JP Atray Memorial tournament in Chandigarh. The photos of Arjun’s training with Yograj Singh had gone viral after they appeared online.
“In the first week of September, I got a call from Yuvi (Yuvraj), saying, ‘Dad, Arjun will be in Chandigarh for two weeks and Sachin has requested if you have time to train him’. How could I have said no to Sachin, he is like my elder son. But I had one condition. I told Yuvi, ‘You know my way of training and I don’t want anyone to intervene’,” Yograj said.
During training with Yograj, Arjun had a tough schedule which included waking up at 5 AM, do a two-hour run followed by a gym session.
“I had told him that he must forget he is Sachin Tendulkar’s son for the next 15 days. I feel he was mollycoddled by coaches because he is Tendulkar’s son. I told him that he needs to get out of his father’s shadow,” Yograj said.
Arjun, who is a left-arm pacer, impressed Yograj with his batting skills.
“When I saw him batting, I thought this guy could be a destroyer. I immediately gave feedback to Sachin and Yuvraj. I called Sachin and asked him why he didn’t focus more on Arjun’s batting,” Yograj said.
After scoring a century for Goa, Arjun said, “Just get into the basics. Give the first hour to the bowlers and once I sustained the initial phase, it was time to capitalise and get runs.”
