Tendulkar bats with Ganguly's blade

Source: Mumbai Mirror     Date: December 24, 2006  

While the Indian bowling attack was sweating it out against KwaZulu Natal yesterday at the Crusaders Park, one member of the squad had a surprising smile on his face.

Sachin Tendulkar kept one eye on the main square, but the other repeatedly wandered outside the boundary line, where his son Arjun was putting on a commendable show.

With the winter break back home, the master blaster’s family has joined him in South Africa. But, although he’s not playing in the practice game that concluded yesterday, Tendulkar couldn’t spend the day shopping as he still needed to stay with the team. So, the whole bunch — wife Anjali, children Sara and Arjun, and Tendulkar’s in-laws — carved out another route to spend time together.

They made a surprise appearance at the venue yesterday. Tendulkar’s son, Arjun, certainly had no problem with the idea and his eyes lit up the moment he saw children playing cricket outside the boundary line.

Arjun quickly picked up a bat from the Indian dressing room and ran to join boys, who happily welcomed their Indian guest. Tendulkar jr then forgot the world around him for nearly two hours as he merrily orchestrated the deftest of cuts, the most vicious of pulls and a number of elegant drives.

Apparently, the bat he casually picked up was of none other than former India captain Sourav Ganguly, who remained unbeaten on 41 in the game. And like his father, Arjun seemed quite comfortable with the heavy bat.

“We saw Sachin bat at the age of 15 and now we are watching his son batting at the age of ,” said chairman of selectors Dilip Vengsarkar, who was also at the ground and saw Arjun bat.