The Blues Beckon

Their parents played cricket for India. Years later, their sons and daughters take guard and aim to break into the elitest of XIs.

- Qaiser Mohammad Ali

NOT many from the Indian under-19 team which returned home with the World Cup from New Zealand after an imperious display of cricketing skills may make it to the senior team—only seven out of 75 youngsters who have played in the under-19 World Cup in the past ten years have gone on to play Test cricket.  But a new cricketing brigade is being readied, a crack unit with famous surnames like Tendulkar, Dravid, Sehwag, Mongia and Hirwani. We are not contemplating an all-star Indian veterans’ team. These surnames could well furnish Indian scorecards once again, say in about five to seven years from now, though with different first names like Arjun, Samit and Vedant.

They are the sons of former India players like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Virender Sehwag, Nayan Mongia and Narendra Hirwani, who are currently wielding the willow and tweaking the ball mightily well, thus raising the ultimate expectation. If they continue to perform in the nat­ional domestic tournaments like they have been and make steady progress, they could well emulate their fathers.

Apart from the stalwarts named above, the sons and daughters of Mohammed Azharuddin, Sunil Joshi, Ajay Sharma, Rudra Pratap Singh (senior), and ex-women cricketers Rajini Venugopal, Roma Singh and Koka Suneetha are also dreaming big in cricket. The new generation youngsters include Arjun Tendulkar, Samit Dravid, Mihir Hirwani, Mohit Mongia, brothers Aaryavir and Vedant Sehwag, Sunil Joshi’s son Aryan Joshi, England-based Rudra Pratap Singh’s son Harry and daughter Anjalie, Roma Vanka’s daughter Pooja, and Koka Suneetha’s daughter P. Charishma. They all are aged between 11 and 23.