The little masters: Sachin Tendulkar with his son Arjun.
THE 12-year-old, clad in Team India training gear and a wide smile, strode in from a short run-up at the SCG practice nets and tried to find a way past his watchful dad, a man who holds a cricket bat like a wand.
He was fended off, time after time. This is backyard cricket when your father is Sachin Tendulkar. You can't expect to get him out too often.
Arjun Tendulkar, the son of Test cricket's greatest run-scorer, is a boy already used to the attention that comes with being the son of an icon.
Bowling at his father at Moore Park yesterday, as India stepped up preparations for the second Test against Australia starting tomorrow, he acted as if he was one of coach Duncan Fletcher's squad.
One day, he could be playing for India. Expectations are a facet of life of being Tendulkar's offspring, and those of young Arjun have only intensified.
While his father continues his quest for a 100th international hundred, Arjun is busy making a name for himself, and not just in the Sydney nets.
It was in an inter-school match in Mumbai last November when India's cricket-obsessed public of 1.2 billion was truly awakened to his burgeoning talents with bat and ball.
The left-arm Arjun took 8-22 for the Dhirubhai Ambani School on debut in the Harris Shield schools competition, bowling a dozen overs in a row and reportedly troubling the opposition batsmen with his swing and accuracy.
The reason for the subsequent hysteria on the subcontinent was about more than the fact he is cricketing royalty. It was in the same schools tournament in Mumbai more than 23 years ago from which Tendulkar emerged emphatically into public consciousness.
Playing for the Shardashram Vidyamandir school, a then 14-year-old ''Little Master'' made waves with an unbeaten partnership of 664 with his schoolyard friend Vinod Kambli, who himself went on to play 17 Tests.
When the innings was declared, Tendulkar had scored 326, while Kambli was undefeated on 349.
Only 18 months later Tendulkar made his Test debut for India against Pakistan in Karachi at the age of 16. More than two decades later he has 51 Test centuries to his name and is still going at the age of 38.
To suggest Arjun is destined for such a breakthrough is, at present, fanciful and unfair.
Sunil Gavaskar's son Rohan also had much pressure heaped on him as a result of his father's deeds. While Rohan flirted with international cricket, his career could be considered modest at best.
But what has been indicated by young Arjun's efforts for his school and in the Indian training nets is that, unlike his father, he might turn out a bowler rather than a batsman.
Arjun is, contrary to his legendary old man, a left-hander with the bat but didn't get a chance to pad up yesterday with Fletcher's side in serious training mode following its 122-run defeat in Melbourne last week.
Yet his bowling has made headlines in India and also reportedly got the better of one of Tendulkar's squad colleagues in the lead-up to the Boxing Day Test at the MCG.
Indian media reported that Arjun, bowling at Rohit Sharma, had with late away movement beaten the batsman with his first delivery in the Melbourne nets.
Sharma, 24, is hoping to make his Test debut in Sydney, possibly at the expense of Virat Kohli in the Indian middle order. From facing Tendulkar's son in practice, he hopes to be around if or when the great man reaches that special milestone in Sydney.
''What he has done for cricket is tremendous,'' Sharma said. ''Not only Indians but even Australians, and all over the world, people want him to get that landmark. As we know, Sydney is his ground, so hopefully it happens here.''
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