Sachin Tendulkar gifts bat to Arjun Tendulkar ’s U-19 roommate

Eighteen-year-old Arjun Tendulkar, son of the legendary Sachin Tendulkar, is all set to make his under-19 debut soon. Arjun, along with another Mumbai cricketer, will be flying to Sri Lanka soon for the two four-day matches. 17-year-old batsman Yashasvi Jaiswal, picked for the five one day games to follow the two four-day matches, is the other Mumbai cricketer who will board the same flight with Arjun.

Yashasvi comes from a lower middle class family and has also seen days in which he had to sleep on an empty stomach. In the preparatory NCA camp in Bangalore for this trip, Arjun and Yashasvi were roommates. The batsman had just one wish, to meet his roommate’s father, and soon after the camp, Arjun took Yashasvi to his house in Bandra, where he got to meet his icon.

“It was my dream which came true. I got a bit nervous. I could not believe it was him. I asked him as many questions as I could about my game and he explained with examples. He told me how I could change my thoughts in different situations,” Yashasvi told India Today.

Tendulkar gifted Yashasvi a bat with a message which read thus, “Dear Yashasvi, Enjoy the journey and always give your best.” Tendulkar has advised the teenager to use this bat when he makes his U19 debut.

“Sachin Sir has told me it will be better for you if you play with this bat. So I will play with it and try to score big,” said Yashasvi, who has more than 500 runs under his belt in the Cooch Behar trophy.

Yashasvi’s financial struggles 

To represent India will be a dream come true for the boy, who used to sell lost balls in a match to earn a living. He reveals that he would collect lost balls after a game so that he could sell them and earn some money.

“I have done all sorts of odd jobs from scoring, umpiring, getting back lost balls during matches to make some money to eat. Sometimes when I found balls after matches were over, I would sell them to earn money,” he told India Today.

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