The Tenginakai family would roll a cricket ball in the corridors, at home, for fun. Soon dad Jayadev found that despite his young age, his son, Pruthvi, had the ability to turn the ball. He promptly enrolled him with Imtiaz Ahmed Cricket Academy (IACA) at age 11. Four years on, the casual cricketer now is shaping up to be a bowling all-rounder with immense potential.
Pruthvi is a student of Florence Public School, R T Nagar, and makes sure that he never misses coaching classes at the IACA at St John’s College Grounds. The lad is totally committed to the game and is waiting to add inches, put on weight, and just explode on the cricketing scene with his exploits.
In the local cricket league, Pruthvi turns out for Gary Cricketers in the 4th division and plays for Vultures Cricket Club in the Under-16 KSCA inter-club championship. The double exposure has done him a world of good at a very young age and Pruthvi is determined to make the most of it and earn call-ups for state age group teams and, eventually, for the senior team itself.
Pruthvi is a bowling allrounder, bowling right arm leg-spinners and a middleorder batsman capable of sticking around or having a go as the situation demands.
He has been performing consistently well in all the tournaments he has played. He has always been among top three wicket-takers, for the last two years, in KSCA inter-school Under-16 tournament. An achievement any youngster would be proud of. He has played in the KSCA zonal matches for the last two years, consecutively. Pruthvi was lucky enough to be on the teams which toured Sri Lanka and Malaysia, on a couple of occasions, with his club and performed exceptionally well on the tour to bag the best bowler award every time. Pruthvi has created a spring board for success quite early on.
Pruthvi has dazzled with his performances in the Under-16 KSCA league 2013, in recent times, and has gobbled up no less than 24 wickets in just six matches, including an eight-wicket match haul in the semi-finals in which he also swung his bat around to compile a total of 140 very useful runs in five innings. He was largely instrumental in his team reaching the finals which was played at Chinnaswamy Stadium where they ended up as the runners-up. In the Under-16 Dell KSCA 2012 tournament, Pruthvi took 37 wickets in seven matches including a 12-wicket match haul. He was the third highest wicket taker in Karnataka and has scored 321 runs in nine innings. Quite fit and agile, Pruthvi is also a very sharp and effective fielder and subscribes to the ‘a run saved is a run scored’ theory.
“Shane Warne and Rahul Dravid are my favourite cricketers,” blushes Pruthvi when asked about his idols.
Like any promising youngster, Pruthvi wants to make he Karnataka junior and the senior teams, in future, and then, of course, be eligible for selection to the Indian youth and senior teams.
He has the bat and the ball to do all the talking. And they will, loud and clear. Just watch out.