Career takes flight? After 1,000-run knock, Pranav Dhanawade offered a place in Air India cricket team

New Delhi: Pranav Dhanawade, the teenage cricket sensation who scripted history with an unbeaten knock of 1009, has been offered a place in national carrier Air India’s sporting team. Air India’s offer to the 15-year-old cricketer is in line with the airline’s policy of encouraging budding talent in various fields, an official said. “We already communicated our decision to Pranav’s family [on Wednesday]. We have asked him to join Air India team on a scholarship basis,” an Air India source said. [caption id=“attachment_2575738” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Pranav Dhanawade. Photo: Jigar Mehta/Firstpost[/caption] Son of an auto-rickshaw driver, the Mumbai teenager became the first batsman ever to notch up a four-figure score in any form of cricket. Pranav peppered his awe-inspiring innings, which lasted 395 minutes, with a whopping 129 fours and 59 sixes. Playing for K C Gandhi Higher Secondary School, he reached the gigantic score in just 323 deliveries with a jaw-dropping strike rate of 312.38 in the game against Arya Gurukul in the Bhandari Cup inter-school tournament organised by the Mumbai Cricket Association on Tuesday. The epic knock ended when his school declared at 1465, which is also a world record. His school went past Victoria’s 1107 against New South Wales made way back in 1926. Pranav now holds the record for the highest individual score in any form of cricket, bettering A E J Collins’ 628 not out for Clark’s House against North Town in 1899 in the UK. Air India has been promoting young, upcoming talent and has helped shaping up the carriers of many Indian cricketers, the official said. The official, however, did not share the scholarship amount that Air India would be paying to him. Maharashtra has already announced that it would bear expenses for further coaching and education of the young cricketer who left the word astounded with his willow. PTI