Bollywood takes a shy at Cricket

By - Md Mudassir Alam

Cricketers and Actors are the icons of todays’ youth. What a heady concoction if one crosses over to the other’s boundary. The mass goes gaga to watch it. Some Indian cricketers have had a shy at Bollywood, while some cricketers have married Bollywood beauties. Even Bollywood too has dished out movies on Cricket as a subject, let's take a trip down on the Cricket-Bollywood romance.

In the 70s and 80s cricketers Sandeep Patil, Salim Durrani and Sunil Gavaskar had a shy at films. Sandeep Patil was paired opposite Bengali beauty Debashree Roy in “Kabhi Ajnabee The.” The wicket-keeper batsman Salim Durrani made his Bollywood debut with B.R. Ishara’s Charitra opposite Parveen Babi. Sunil Gavaskar acted in two Marathi films and the end of his cricket career.

The latest Indian cricketers to make the celluloid debut are Ajay Jadeja and Vinod Kambli. Ajay Jadeja acted opposite Celina Jaitley in Khel and Vinod Kambli worked in Anarth. Both the films bombed at the box office and the acting career of the cricketers sank.

Cricketers from across the border also invaded the Bollywood Pitch. Director J.P.Dutta introduced Mohsin Khan in multi-starrer Batwara with stars like Dharmendra and Vinod Khanna. Mohsin Khan did not get any recognition in the film, but later on he got another chance in Saathi. Saathi failed at the box office and Mohsin's Bollywood career ended. For a brief while he was married to Bollywood beauty Reena Roy.

Last year Mahesh Bhatt offered Pakistani speedstar Shoaib Akhtar a role in his film. But the speedstar turned down the offer. Even the great cricketing hero Kapil Dev had a fling at Bollywood in director Bish Mehay 1985 film Cricket which also became of source of inspiration for Nagesh Kukunoor's film Iqbal.

Meanwhile, several Hindi films have been made with a plot inspired by cricket, which did good business. The popular films are All Rounder (1984), Awwal Number (1990), Chamatkar (1992), Lagaan (2001) and Iqbal (2006).

Uauallly the cinegoers has highly appreciated the cricket on screen. However, All Rounder and Awwal Number could not do well as the box office but Chamantkaar, Lagaan and Iqbal became a runway hit.