Howzzat ?

The hysteria over cricket in our country for two weeks continuously has shadowed other newsworthy items. Thrown into the backseat are farmers' plight, unemployment scenario and increasing cost of living. Instead we have more cricket and it's analysis.
Well, so be it...

And the climax is today's Champion Trophy match between India and Pakistan.


Cricket and cricketers have their presence felt in Hindi films, too. While there have been some films involving cricket in the narrative, the more interesting are the instances when cricketers have been on-screen as actors.

 That is an act of real courage,even if they are shying away from the faster one !


So, today we check out on those cricketers ( real life ) who have been part of a hindi film. Alongwith this there will be a fair sprinkling of cricket facts for the die hard cricket fans. And the whole country spilling over with them  !


Technically speaking,  the first cricketers to have been seen on screen are Vinoo Mankad and Khadu Rangnekar. Not in flesh and blood, but in photographs adorning the wall of Mala Sinha, a cricket fan in the film Love Marriage ( 1959)!

The film depicts Dev Anand as a swashbuckling batsman who comes to Bombay from Jhansi and the maiden is bowled over by his charm and ...batting. This was the film having cricket mentioned in a song.

  Incidentally, the bat-and-ball had been mentioned in a song, one year earlier in the film Howrah Bridge, when Qamar Jalalabadi wrote 

मुहब्बत का हाथ जवानी का पल्ला
सुभान अल्लाह बाबू सुभान अल्लाह..

कही जा रही है सुनी जा रही है
निगाहों की बाज़ी लगी जा रही है
हो नदिया किनारे की लहरों पे गेंद-बल्ला
सुभान अल्लाह बाबू सुभान अल्लाह...

Subhan-allah !


But I am digressing  here...
Cricket in Hindi films is a separate subject that can be tackled  later on. The emphasis here is on real life cricketers to have appeared in Hindi films.

In the sixties, as the game got more popular with the masses, we saw Sir Frank Worrell playing a cameo in Around the World 1967 ( see my musiblog ) enacting a scene with Om Prakash. Om keeps on dropping names of famous people with wrong profession and our man keeps correcting him.

Frank Worrell was one of the 3Ws that Windies boasted of,  the other being Walcott and Weekes. He was knighted by the British Empire.
Interesting to note that the Cricket Association of Bengal (CAB) organises a blood donation camp every year on February; hundreds donate blood at the Eden Gardens on the day; CAB also calls it the Frank Worrell Day.
Worrell passed away of leukaemia at a mere 42.

The 60s, under Nawab Pataudi were spent in consolidating a team, the effect came to bear fruits in the 70s.India trounced England and West Indies in quick succession and made its presence felt. The only cricketer of the 60s who could have been a film hero was Abbas Ali Baig, a handsome young man then. He was  kissed by a girl on his way back to the pavilion not less than 13 times , evoking a comment from the startled commentator Vijay Merchant,
 " I wonder where all these enterprising young ladies were when I was scoring my hundreds and 200s "

One of the most dashing batsmen of these times was Salim Durrani. There were so many stories woven round Durrani at the time when there was no electronic media. it was said that he could hit a six "on demand", a knack which he had demonstrated more than once. He was a sluggish fielder, though, and there were rumours of his tiffs with the skipper Pataudi. His charisma must have drawn Bollywood to him and one fine morning Sportsweek, the only sports magazine had Durrani 's photo with Parveen Babi, teaching her how to hold a bat !

They were paired in B.R.Ishara's Charitra ( 1973) , which bombed as soon as it was released. Grapevine had it that he was considered for the role in Pakeezah, which finally went to Raaj Kumar. 

Durrani remains one of the most talked about cricketers of his times, despite not being very successful statistically. Footage of Charitra is also not available readily. However, this Ramayana "doha" rendered in the film by Bappi Lahiri, the music director is a rare piece in the  must-listen category !

The 70s had a lot of cricketers appearing on the silver screen , as Indian audiences warmed up to their knights-in-pads. The era of 70s sowed the seeds of successful future of Indian cricket. While the 1971 tour was a one man show by  Sunil Gavaskar, all through the 70s, Indian cricketers showed flashes of brilliance and were able to displace hockey as the most talked about sport in the country. Incidentally there is an Indo-Pak hockey match also lined up today, but I bet no one will see it !
Gavaskar also got offers to act in films and he actually completed a film in Marathi called Savli Premachi (1980).

In Sunny Days, his autobiography he has stated how he was nearly switched at birth and had that happened, he would have been catching fish instead of chasing the heroine in the film !

By the time 80s came up, we had seen glorious wins and massive defeats. Gavaskar had been acknowledged as a world-class batsman and at the same time got the epithet of 'Snail' Gavaskar ( owing to his 36 runs in 174 balls in the Inaugural World Cup). India had resumed cricketing ties with Pakistan in 1978 after a hiatus of 17 years. The pace batteries of Windies and Aussies were equally terrifying and Sri Lanka were emerging as a force to reckon with .

In domestic cricket, the new hero was, of course Kapil Dev. The all rounder in the same class as Botham and Imran Khan  single-handedly got the country its first World Cup in 1983.

But Bollywood preferred the dashing Sandeep Patil to play a hero to Poonam Dhillon in Kabhi Ajnabi The ( 1985). Poonam Dhillon was probably the second heroine after Mala Sinha to be a cricket fan; she reads Sportsweek in the film !
In a scene, she brings her father to watch Sandeep (in the role of a cricketer in the film) playing  a match. He gets out on duck. She storms up to him and says, "No century, no marriage". Sandeep draws her close and in true Bollywood style says "No kiss, no century" !   

The film also had Ashok Mankad, as a friend of Poonam Dhillon. In order to give Patil moral support,  the following colleagues gave a cameo in opening scenes and party scenes in the film : Syed Kirmani, Sunil  Gavaskar ( his second film---and a third one was Maalamaal in 1988), Mohinder Amarnath ( who is the only cricketer to have been out for "handling the ball" and "obstructing the field"), Roger Binny,Kapil Dev ( whose match-winning 175 not out was the first century by an Indian in ODIs) , Gordon Greenidge, Madan Lal, Clive Lloyd, Malcolm Marshall, Balvinder Singh Sandhu, Ravi Shastri ( the batsman to have batted on all five days of a test match, part from Jaisimha)  and Srikkanth.

 

Before we touch the 90s, a story of one one cricketer -turned- film star needs to be told.  Yograj Singh was a one-test cap but his innings as an actor , mainly in Punjabi films, is a success story. He was awarded Lifetime Award for Punjabi films in 2012.Later on he acted in Hindi films too ( last seen playing coach to Milkha Singh in Bhaag Milkha Bhaag). Before taking up cricket seriously, he had acted in a few films getting bit roles. That makes him an actor-turned cricketer-turned actor. Now known as father of Yuvraj Singh, Yograj has been in a series of controversies all his life.

Proximity with Pakistan brings not only cricketers to our stadiums ( or stadia, if you prefer the puritan) , but also to our studios. Mohsin Khan, the stylish Pakistani batsman finds a place in the ensemble cast of Dharmendra, Vinod Khanna, Dimple Kapadia, Poonam Dhillon and Amrish Puri in Batwara 1989. For the record, he had completed about 15 films, so he  is not a one-off type of cricketer-actor. His parallel role with Aditya Pancholi in Saathi (1991) got him songs too, this one about dosti and dushmani--so ironic !

In 1999-2000, the cricketer-hero  interface increased, so does the sledging- betting- fixing  episodes and all of a sudden you didn't know whom to believe. The real life villains (cricketers)  are  reel life heroes or is it the other way round.  Big money and big trouble come together. Amidst all this, we had a few cricketers getting  projects in tinsel town.

In the new decade two cricketers stole the show in showbiz. Ajay Jadeja ( one of the cricketers charged for match-fixing) and Salil Ankola were the new crop of hero material cricketers. Ajay acted in a couple of  films and Salil in TV serials, as the satellite TV started to become popular in the country.

Since then, we have had many cricketers play  roles in films , such as Harbhajan Singh ( Mujhe Shadi Karogi) , Brett Lee ( UNIndian) and in Annarth,  Vinod Kambli ( whose test average of 54.20 is better than Sachin's 53.78) and Navjot Sidhu ( in Punjabi films). There might be many others who have done bit roles in recent years.

But it will be in the fitness of things to conclude with the latest film Sachin: A Billion Dreams  ( 2017), an autobiographical  film having Sachin Tendulkar, Mahendra Singh Dhoni ( whose autobiographical film had Sushant Singh Rajput playing him) and Virender Sehwag, whose highest scores in T20, ODIs and Tests are 119,219 and 319 ! 

Coming back to the Indo-Pak match today, I am reminded of three players who played for both countries. They are Amir Elahi, Gul Mohammad and Abdul Hafeez Kardar.

And that reminds me of a fact that will certainly have you stumped.

One of the most interesting facts about Sachin: The first country he played for,  was none other than...Pakistan !

 In 1987, two years before his debut, he came on field as a substitute player for Pakistan when they were touring India  !

Howzzat ?