Cricket sensation Pranav Dhanawade taken to police station just for practicing his batting
Mumbai cricketer Pranav Dhanawade, who shot into international limelight by scoring a world record 1009 runs last year, was detained in a police lockup for more than an hour on Saturday. The reason--protesting against a copter landing in the place where he and his teammates were training.
The sorry situation of local talents of our country, who diligently spend countless hours in perfecting their craft, has come to the fore once again. On Saturday, teenager Pranav Dhanawade, who shot to international fame last year by becoming the first person to score 1000 runs in a single innings, had a small delay in vacating the Subhash Maidan, the ground where he has been training for the last 10-12 years.
According to Pranav’s father, a makeshift helipad had been created at Kalyan’s Subhash Maidan for a prominent politician’s chopper to land. The cops had repeatedly asked Pranav and other youngsters training in the nets to vacate the ground.
“Pranav and the others stopped training immediately and packed their bags. They were just stretching about 10-15 feet away from the helipad when the cops came again and asked them why they were still loitering around. Pranav told them that they would leave in five minutes after finishing their stretching exercises.
“At this point, the cops lost their cool and dragged Pranav by the collar and bundled him into a police van. I had also reached the ground by then and they threw me also into the van for questioning them. No other kid was picked up,” Prashant Dhanawade, father of Pranav, told Hindustan Times.
“It was only after a few local politicians and media persons showed up that they allowed us to go,” added Prashant.
Pranav’s coach Mobin Shaikh slammed the actions of the police officials following this incident pointing out at the poor state of facilities given to the youngsters.Â
“First of all, there are no proper facilities for children to train. There’s only one proper ground in that area for budding cricketers. The ground is like a temple or mosque for the players; they should get first preference there. Just a year ago, you put this kid on the pedestal and now you have treated him like a criminal,” said Shaikh.
Shaikh also revealed that the other day two cops had asked the youngsters to end their nets sessions by 5:00 pm because a senior citizen had made a complaint.Â
“Our nets start at four. How can we end at five?” asked Shaikh.