Mumbai cricketer Pranav Dhanawade, who scored 1009 runs in a single innings in January, was caught by the collar of his jersey and detained in a police lockup for more than an hour on Saturday, reported the Hindustan Times.
The 16-year-old’s offence was that he delayed in vacating the Subhash Maidan, the ground where he has been training for the last 10-12 years.
According to Pranav’s father, Prashant, a makeshift helipad was created at Kalyan’s Subhash Maidan for a politician’s chopper to land. The cops had consequently asked Pranav and other youngsters training there at 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,” said Prashant Dhanawade to HT.
The duo were taken to the police station where they were abused further by a senior police inspector. “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 cops’ action. “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.