Oct 28, 2024 02:41 PM IST
Ayush Pandey’s father decided that his son would become a cricketer the day he saw Sachin Tendulkar lift the 2011 World Cup trophy
Sachin Tendulkar’s career was such that it inspired generations of cricketers while the great man was playing and continues to do so in the years since he hung up his boots. It has been 11 years since Tendulkar retired from the sport and so we could start seeing players whose journey in the sport began towards the end of the former India cricketer’s career.
It was in this twilight period that Tendulkar won the 2011 World Cup, which he has since called his greatest-ever achievement. The legacy of that title is probably impossible to measure and all we can do is see examples of it. One such example that has cropped up recently is that of Ayush Pandey, the Chhattisgarh opener who has helped his side get off to a strong start in their first innings against the much more favoured Tamil Nadu in the Ranji Trophy. Pandey scored 124 in 184 balls, his innings laced with 19 fours, to lead Chhattisgarh to a score of 500 batting first.
Pandey’s father, Shashi Kant, had decided that his son would become a cricketer when he saw Tendulkar lift the World Cup at the Wankhede Stadium on April 2, 2011. Ayush’s initial education in cricket was purely through watching the sport on television, particularly when Tendulkar was batting, according the Indian Express.
“Who can coach a kid better than Tendulkar?” Shashi is quoted as saying by the Indian Express. “We didn’t have that exposure here. So it was only through television. And whatever Tendulkar used to do on field, I used to make Ayush watch it and learn. From cricket to discipline there was everything to learn and follow,” he said.
‘Wanted Ayush to give the country the same joy Tendulkar did by winning World Cup’
The World Cup win is what inspired Shashi to decide that Ayush’s education can be kept aside and he needs to concentrate on cricket. “I wanted Ayush to give the country the same joy that Tendulkar gave by winning the World Cup. A month later when the summer holidays began, he was in a coaching camp. From there on, he has only climbed up,” he is further quoted as saying.
Ayush admitted that he wasn’t particularly fond of having to learn while watching the matches. But he also acknowledged that it was his entry point into the sport before he started going for formal coaching. “To be honest, I didn’t like it initially, but I’d no choice,” Ayush says. “Every day he would take me to a garage and bowl underarms. That’s how I started playing. It was my routine until formal coaching began.”
The 21-year-old made his Ranji Trophy debut in 2022 with a hat-trick of ducks. He was then dropped from the squad for the 2023/24 after uninspiring scores in the next three innings.
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