Nepotism in Cricket? Aakash Chopra comments about Arjun Tendulkar!

Former India opener Aakash Chopra has denied the presence of nepotism in Indian cricket. He said that the players do not get any kind of favours at the higher level but he also mentioned that they do get at the domestic level. While speaking on his YouTube channel, he took the example of Arjun Tendulkar, son of one of India’s most celebrated cricketers Sachin Tendulkar. 

"You can say the same thing about Arjun Tendulkar. Because he is Tendulkar's son, nothing was given to him on a platter. He didn't get an easy access to the Indian cricket team. There were no such useless selections even in the India under-19 team. Whenever the selection happens, it would be because of a sterling performance," Chopra stated.

Arjun Tendulkar represented the Indian under 19 team in Youth test matches. He si yet to enter the Mumbai Ranji Trophy team. “Arjun was one of the net bowlers who were bowling to the Indian women's team on the eve of the 2017 World Cup final,” Times now cited in its report.

He also referred to Rohan Gavaskar, son of Sunil Gavaskar to build his case. Rohan played domestic cricket for a prolonged period however he did not play international cricket.

"No mate! If you see the bigger picture, Sunil Gavaskar's son was Rohan Gavaskar. Just because he was Sunil Gavaskar's son he should have played a lot of cricket, many ODIs and Test matches. But that did not happen.

"And when he played for India, it was because he was consistently doing very well for Bengal. In fact, forget all that, he was even not playing his son in the Mumbai Ranji team. He was not getting a place in the Mumbai team even though he had the surname as Gavaskar," Chopra added.