PRANAV DHANAWADE – TALENT THAT NEEDS TO BE NURTURED

By now, almost everybody who follows Indian cricket must have become familiar with the name of Pranav Dhanawade. He is a 15 yr old boy from Kalyan entered into the history books of world cricket on Monday, January 4, 2016 and became the first ever batsman to score 1000+ plus runs in an innings in an officially recorded cricket match. He is the son of an auto-rickshaw driver and studying 10th standard at KC Gandhi High School, Kalyan, eastern suburbs of Mumbai. He has achieved this feat in the match against Arya Gurukul School in the third round of the HT Bhandari Cup tournament, an under-16 inter-school event organized by the Mumbai Cricket Association (MCA).

Opening the batting for KC Gandhi High School, Pranav scored unbeaten 652 on Monday, eventually breaking 116 year old cricketing record of ‘highest individual score’ held by AEJ Collins. Collins had held the record since 1899 when he struck an unbeaten 628 for Clark House against North Town House in UK. Resuming the batting on Tuesday, Pranav amassed 269 more runs by lunch time, taking his individual score to 921. And in the session after lunch, Pranav raced towards the first four digit score ever scored by an individual in an innings. He remained unbeaten on 1009 when his team finally declared with the scorecard reading 1465 for 3.

His final score read like this:

Hearty Congratulations to Pranav on this marvellous achievement. It is no small feat by any means. You really did wonders by scoring 1000+ runs and certainly need to cherish this moment.

Now, let us ponder over a few things. The opposition is very weak, consisted of underage players, who were playing a competitive match for the very first time and totally underprepared. The ground is small and square leg boundary was just over 30 yards. The coach showed lack of sportsmanship by not declaring the innings against the weaker opposition and let Pranav bat as long as he can. Yes, all that is true, but, let us not question the achievement itself of this young boy. It is truly an incredible display of skill and stamina and scoring over a thousand runs at such a rapid pace in a single innings under any conditions is something that is phenomenal and something that will be remembered for time immemorial. This is a feat of gargantuan proportions.

And of course, it is true that every knock of him from now onwards, for a short while, will be closely monitored, every move tracked and every innings looked at with a magnifying glass. He would get a lot of attention from friends, relatives and more importantly media. But, what he needs foremost, is attention of the right people from Indian Cricket. This young talent needs to be nurtured through proper guidance and support. He needs to be given the right opportunity at the right time.

Pranav, we really wish you do not let this be the last great achievement of your life and instead, use this innings as a stepping stone to achieve many more greater things. We wish you all the best. We wish Pranav Dhanawade become a household name of Indian cricket in the coming future.

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