It’s not often that one finds Sachin Tendulkar in controversy. But for the last couple of days, social media has been up in arms against the legendary batsman with charges of nepotism.
As the selections recently announced the West Zone U-16 squad for the inter-zonal tournament, Sachin found himself in the eye of a storm as his son Arjun has been drafted into the side ahead of Mumbai wonderkid Pranav Dhanawade who recently made headlines by slamming an unbeaten 1,008. Pranav is the son of an auto-rickshaw driver.
As there are two sides to every story, there has been a good number of people supporting Arjun, rubbishing the memes comparing the two young cricketers. One such meme claimed that Pranav was not picked for the “India U-16 team”. In fact, there is no such team picked by the BCCI selectors.
Helping hand from dad
Stuart Binny became a joke on social media when he was picked for the 2015 World Cup when his father Roger was a member of the selection panel.
In 2011, the selection of Anirudha Srikkanth in the squad for the Emerging Players Tournament in Australia raised eyebrows as his father Kirshnamachari Srikkanth was then chairman of the BCCI selection committee.
Arjun Yadav, son of former Hyderabad Cricket Association secretary and BCCI president Shivlal Yadav, Jaydev Shah, the son of former BCCI official Niranjan Shah, have faced constant criticisms for their surnames.
Hemant Kanitkar’s son Hrishikesh’s selection for the Indian team in 1997 had raised a few eyebrows. Kanitkar went on to represent India in 34 ODIs without too much success as his average of 17.84 reveals.
In 2003, Brijesh Patel’s son Udit’s selection in the India U-19 team for the Asian Cricket Council U-19 championship had stirred up a hornet’s nest.
Tweet talk
Gyrish Anjaan (CGyrish) tweets, “Eklavya loses to Arjun (Tendulkar ) again. When will India be sensitive about discrimination?”
Yash Tewari tweets, “Don’t share any controversial thing without confirming its authenticity! I support #ArjunTendulkar.”
Here to question (@sunil_mehta23) tweets, “It’s very sad to see paid media supporting the selection of #ArjunTendulkar with fake articles.”
