"He's batting like his father used to" - Yograj Singh's stunning claim on Arjun Tendulkar post IPL 2026 Auction

Former India cricketer Yograj Singh has stated that Arjun Tendulkar's batting has been criminally overlooked so far at the domestic level. The youngster, son of the famous Sachin Tendulkar, has predominantly been a bowling all-rounder for the majority, if not all, of his career.

Arjun Tendulkar currently averages 21.37 in first-class cricket, 18.25 in List A cricket, and 13.50 in T20s. He scored a hundred during his Ranji Trophy debut against Rajasthan in 2022 while batting at No.7, and has two fifties in red-ball cricket.

Recently, he has been given more batting responsibility for Goa in domestic cricket. The all-rounder has opened the innings for the domestic side at times in both the 2025-26 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy, and the ongoing 2025 Vijay Hazare Trophy.

In Goa's last clash in the List A domestic tournament against Mumbai, he played as an opener and scored 24 runs off 27 deliveries, before being dismissed by Shardul Thakur. In the 2025-26 SMAT, he scored 70 runs in five innings at an average of 14.

However, Yograj Singh feels that there is a lot of potential in Arjun Tendulkar's batting, having witnessed his talent firsthand while mentoring him a few years ago.

"You are focusing only on his bowling, what are you doing, what has happened? There are so many coaches, what are they doing? He is basically a batsman. When he came to me, he was there for around 12-13 days, I welcomed him. They told me to take care of him, and I told them not to worry," Yograj Singh said in an interview with Ravish Bisht. "One day he was hit by a ball, and we took him to a doctor, and he was fine. So, I told him to put on his pads instead to do some batting. He told me that they do not focus on his batting. So, I said that we will see because I had not seen him bat before. In the nets, he was hitting boundaries everywhere, and then I questioned his coach as to why he was not given batting. I also told him that he is a batsman of a great quality, he's batting like his father used to," he continued.

In his solitary batting outing in the Indian Premier League (IPL), he was sent at No.9 against the Gujarat Titans (GT), where he scored 13 runs off nine deliveries.

Arjun Tendulkar was traded to Lucknow Super Giants ahead of IPL 2026 Auction

After not availing a single game over the course of the last season, Arjun Tendulkar was traded off by the Mumbai Indians (MI) to the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) for his existing price tag of INR 30 Lakh before the 2026 retention deadline.

The all-rounder is likely to be seen next in Round 5 of the 2025-26 Vijay Hazare Trophy, where Goa are scheduled to take on Uttarakhand on Saturday, January 3.

Edited by Gokul Nair