Mumbai: The young star cricketer Pranav Dhanawade, who allured immense magnetism for scoring a world record 1009 runs, faced the humiliation of being caught by the collar of his jersey and detained in a police lockup for more than an hour.
The 16 years old, failed to vacant the Subhash Maidan, in time, which was that was being used as a makeshift helipad for the arrival of Union Minister Prakash Javadekar. It’s the same Cricket ground where he has been training for the last 10-12 years.
After t he incident, young cricketer voiced his experience and shared how he was abused by the cops. “We were practicing at the ground in the evening. A helipad was made for a minister there. Our nets were far from it. They stopped the nets but we agreed. We were stretching at the ground when the cops asked us to go home.
“They told us not to wait there as the ground had been taken over. We asked them to allow us two minutes to stretch and that we’d go home after that. But they spoke arrogantly and even raised their hand on us. The put us in the van as if we had committed some grave crime. At the station, PI Suryavanshi abused us using language we have never heard before.
And he began to correct me even though I hadn’t said anything to them. There’s just one ground. If we don’t play there then where will we? We don’t have a ground available, narrated Pranav Dhanawade.
However, cops carried a totally different taste of the story. Inspector Dilip Suryavanshi said, “Nothing major has happened. Union Minister Prakash Javadekar was coming and a helipad was prepared for him and handed over to us. Policemen were posted there for this. There were some cricketers including Pranav Dhanawade.
“He was asked to continue practice some distance away. He asked the policemen if they had a notice. A crowd gathered there. We sent two officers to the ground. He asked them too if they had a notice. To avoid causing a problem he was asked to come to the police station and see the notice there.
The officers told me that the kids refused to listen despite us explaining that this was a helipad for someone with Z+ category of security. They asked them not to play but the kids ridiculed them. No abusive language was used. They were told that they should respect the policemen who would be their father’s age.”
Even the union minister inclined his voices towards the wonder boy and blamed District administration for the incident. “Police is saying they have not beaten anyone . If Pranav has asked for space to play, he is correct. The demands of the players is correct. If police has beaten any player it is wrong. I will let the chief minister know about the matter. District administration should be careful in handling such situations,” said Javadekar.
Paranav had scored 1,009 not out, from 327 balls, for KC Gandhi High School of the Kalyan administrative district. Dhanawade broke the 116-year-old record of 628 not out, set by the English schoolboy AEJ Collins in 1899.