Cricket on Screen: The good, bad and ugly of Cricket in Bollywood
A still from M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story.
There are few things that India loves more than cricket and cinema. And yet, the cultural connection between our favourite pastimes have rarely resulted in quality cricket films. Jamie Alter lists some of the best and worst of Bollywood on the willow.
The two great entertainers in India remain cricket and cinema. This has been the case since the first Indian film was shot in 1899 by iconic photographer Harishchandra Sakharam Bhatavdekar, and since the game of cricket was formally adopted by the Parsis in 1848, who put together the first Indian cricket club.
Just where exactly the Indian public’s love affair with cricket and cinema began cannot be traced to one particular moment or incident, but it needs no reiterating that the two remain the country’s most important pastimes. And yet, the cultural connection between the two has seldom resulted in quality films. Here then, is a selection of some of the good, bad and ugly of Hindi films about cricket.
Lagaan (2001)
It fell short of being a masterpiece, but Ashutosh Gowariker’s epic Lagaan (Tax) skillfully combined good acting, direction, writing, music and cinematography. The result was a thoroughly entertaining, if somewhat cliched, Hindi film of gigantic proportions.
In 1893 the British commander of a remote province in rural India, the racist Captain Russell, refuses to forgo the annual tax which the local farmers must pay to their Maharaja, and he to the British, during a severe drought. The film’s chief protagonist and voice of revolt, Bhuvan, played by Aamir Khan, refuses to cower. After he mocks Captain Russell’s passion—cricket—Bhuvan finds himself with no choice but to accept his foe’s challenge to beat the Brits in a match at their own game. Never expecting the poor villagers to master cricket, Captain Russell says that if they beat him and his fellow officers, there will be no tax for three years. And if the Brits win, the tax would be tripled.
One could wonder if Lagaan had shades of John Huston’s 1981 classic Escape to Victory, in which a bunch of PoWs took on their Nazi officers in a high-stakes game of football, and found a way to escape. Perhaps. It could’ve been a silly idea, but Lagaan was saved from disaster by its director Ashutosh Gowarikar and his entire crew and the actors, led superbly by Khan as the leading man. And, of course, there was a killer score by AR Rahman.
Having watched Lagaan a week after it was released, in an iconic Bombay cinema hall where fans jumped and danced in the film’s climactic moment when Bhuvan hits the winning runs, this writer felt first-hand the impact that the film had on India. You didn’t have to be a cricket fan to rejoice when Captain Russell, having caught the cricket ball hit high in the air by Bhuvan, is stunned to find out that he has crossed over the boundary line in doing so. It was patriotism of a new fervor, and a lump in the throat was inevitable even if you knew how the film would end.
As far as the cricket went, this was better than anything we had seen in Indian cinema until then (I’m looking at you, Allrounder and Awwal Number), and full credit to everyone involved.
What also worked in Lagaan’s favour was the marketing. Until the date of its release, the public was uncertain about what this magnum opus was about. And it worked superbly, for viewers clambered to the theatres to watch a clean, excellently-made film that ultimately trumped because it had the soul necessary for a hit: a tight script. Simple though it was—the poor rebelling against the oppressors—it was Khan’s role and his hand in the cricketing aspect that set Lagaan apart. Bhuvan was believable all the way, up to his last-ball six.
This remains the best Hindi film about cricket from the lens of observing the game unfold on screen. When Rajput is shown at the start and end of MS Dhoni: The Untold Story, walking out to bat a spot higher than usual during the final of the 2011 Cricket World Cup, you get goosebumps.
In cricketing parlance, Lagaan is a sixer. Straight out of the park.
M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story (2016)
There is a lot that remains untold about the titular character in Neeraj Pandey’s unabashed ode to India’s most famous cricket captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni. I went into this film not expecting much because, it must be said, there is a lot about Dhoni that we sports journalists know that will never come out in the public.
But once I removed that aspect and watched the film purely as an entertainer, I was indeed, refreshingly entertained. The film, co-produced by Dhoni’s manager and long-time friend, is carried by the lead actor Sushant Singh Rajput who put everything he had into the role. Truly, there is a lot of Dhoni in Rajput, never mind that a lot of Dhoni’s life and career as India captain is conveniently glossed over or left out entirely from the film.
Watch it as a film about a small-town dreamer who overcomes the odds to become the most iconic Indian cricket captain ever, and chances are you will enjoy it. And more than that, watch it for the late Rajput’s exemplary application and execution of Dhoni. There are some scenes in which the resemblance is uncanny.
The makers claim that Rajput put in over 150 days of cricket practice into nailing every nuance of Dhoni and looking like a professional character. The story goes that Sunil Gavaskar, when passing by a nets session where the actor was striking cricket balls with power, asked someone who this cricketer was. Watching clips of Rajput training and then seeing him bat on celluloid really was impressive. This remains the best Hindi film about cricket from the lens of observing the game unfold on screen. When Rajput is shown at the start and end of M.S. Dhoni: The Untold Story, walking out to bat a spot higher than usual during the final of the 2011 Cricket World Cup, you get goosebumps.
Iqbal (2005)
Nagesh Kukunoor’s touching underdog tale focuses on a deaf-and-mute boy, Iqbal (Shreyas Talpade), whose only ambition in life is to play cricket for India. As if being raised under the roof of a house in which his cricket-hating father has made it difficult to pursue his dream was not hard enough, Iqbal faces another obstacle when he is rejected by the local cricket academy.
It is then that his kid sister, Khadija—played wonderfully by Shweta Prasad—takes Iqbal to the local drunk Mohit, who at one time was touted as an India-level cricketer. As fate soon has it, Mohit (Naseeruddin Shah) softens his stance on coaching Iqbal and helps the enthusiastic and naturally-gifted young bowler hone his skill. Iqbal starts making waves, gets selected in the Andhra Pradesh Ranji Trophy squad after being rejected by Hyderabad, and ultimately, breaks into the national team on the basis of some stunning performances at the domestic level.
Now, while watching this film, the natural question that came to mind is: can a boy who cannot speak nor hear play cricket for India? There is no reason why not, say the film’s makers, and what works in Iqbal is the treatment of the subject. Talpade puts in his best to get the rhythm of a fast bowler, and largely succeeds, because of the natural allure he brings to each scene. The acting is strong, the narrative feel-good, and a perky musical score adds to the charm.
There is also an earthy feel to the proceedings, particularly during Iqbal’s journey from his back-of-beyond village to buses and cheap hotels and hostels and nondescript cricket stadiums where countless young talents have tried their best to make a name for themselves.
Some of the on-field scenes again fall back to that familiar trope of Indian cinema – the annoying ability to hurry through such critical sporting passages without enough application – but by and large, Iqbal is a touching film that has its heart in the right place.
Awwal Number (1990)
Aamir Khan was a keen cricketer and good batsman long before Lagaan. One time, in front of this writer’s eyes, Khan told the captain of the club he played for in Mumbai that he had to stop playing because of the danger involved in the sport. He did, however, play the lead role in Dev Anand-directed sports thriller, Awwal Number.
Unfortunately, the cricket here is poor and the film too convoluted. The result is a haphazard movie which oscillates between the brave and the banal (in one scene, Anand places a photo of Cindy Crawford with a maala around it, showing the American supermodel as his deceased mother).
Anand plays a retired cricket turned national chairman of selectors, who also happens to the Deputy Inspector General of Police. He selects rising talent Sunny (Khan) to replace reigning superstar Ronny (Aditya Pancholi). The latter, in anger, plots revenge against the new kid on the block. This is the same Ronny who, as shown in a flashback, once shot a bystander dead because he disturbed him while he was batting.
Cue a dizzying concoction of a plot in which a terrorist organisation, aided by Ronny, plants a bomb under the pitch of a one-day international match between India and Australia at the famous Wankhede Stadium and plans to detonate it with 50,000 spectators gathered, including India’s Prime Minister.
In the film’s climax, Sunny is seen doing his best to take India to victory with a series of shots that look good, but are all-too-easy … as if he is being under-armed the ball from close range. Khan relies on two shots, the cut and the pull, in a sequence which shows him playing them on loop. Adding to the madness is Ronny overhead in a helicopter, detonator in hand, blaming the whirring chopper’s blades for disturbing his concentration, and his elder brother Vicky (Dev Anand) aiming at him with a sniper gun.
And then, suddenly, Sunny has to score six runs off the last ball. No prizes for guessing what happens on the pitch, but I won’t let on about what happens between Vicky and Ronny. You have to watch Awwal Number to find out. Howwwwzat?
Patiala House (2011)
Akshay Kumar joined the cricket bandwagon in Nikhil Advani’s family entertainer Patiala House—the most cricket-centric fictional film since Lagaan. Set against the backdrop of racism in England, Patiala House depicts an inner-city Sikh family’s struggles to find acceptance and sustained prosperity in London, in which the patriarch Gurtej Kahlon (Rishi Kapoor) is bitterly hateful towards the ‘goras’ after being attacked by a skinhead gang (why he remains in the country and pays taxes is never addressed), and cannot fathom that his cricketer son Parghat (Kumar) has been selected to play for England.
Cue a dizzying concoction of a plot in which a terrorist organisation, aided by Ronny, plants a bomb under the pitch of a one-day international match between India and Australia at the famous Wankhede Stadium and plans to detonate it with 50,000 spectators gathered, including India’s Prime Minister.
Staying true to the real narrative of immigrant Asians living in the United Kingdom, but who abhor the English cricket team and passionately support their motherlans—google the Tebbit Test—Patiala House does a good job of showing the tension between father and son and why Parghat shuns his dreams of playing for England.
But then, the plot takes a cinematic liberty that doesn’t entirely convince. Parghat, at the age of 34 and having not played a cricket match for 17 years, is picked by a national cricket selector—who just happens to be a Sikh—in England’s T20I squad. From secretly bowling at a solitary stump by streetlight after his father has slept, Parghat suddenly finds himself making waves as ‘The Punjab Express’ and winning admirers all around.
There is some humour in scenes where Parghat’s extended Punjabi family attempts to hide his success from his father, by swapping the daily newspapers and conveniently disconnecting the cable connection during live cricket matches. The cricket scenes, filmed at iconic venues such as Lord’s and The Oval, veer between tugging at your heart strings and leaving you rolling your eyes.
Kumar, a natural athlete, gets the facial expressions and rhythm correct as he runs in to bowl at stumps during practice or when playing matches, but as well as he has worked on the mechanics of a fast bowler, there is a certain amateurishness to proceedings. The film’s patriotic finale, which is set at Lord’s during a T20I match between England and Australia and features real-life Australian cricketers such as Andrew Symonds and Shaun Tait, is a grand affair and makes no bones about what it intends to do. You can see the end coming from a mile away, but that doesn’t prevent you from being swept up in the theatrics.
In another of those last-ball finishes, Parghat cuts down his pace and adopts the laconic style of former India allrounder Mohinder Amarnath, whom his father Gurtej is a fan of, and wins England the match. And with it, his father’s acceptance. Patiala House is an underdog story whose purpose is to entertain. It does just that, though the cricket aesthetics could have been a lot better.
Dil Bole Hadippa! (2009)
Cricket is the backdrop of this khichdi of a film by Anurag Singh, starring Rani Mukherjee and Shahid Kapoor, which came and went without much of a noise despite being so over-the-top and garish.
The premise? Veera (Mukherjee) is a skilled cricketer who cannot break into any sort of serious team because the jaundiced-eyed men won’t let her try out. So, presto, she glues on a fake moustache and beard and makes it to the local village team, which once a year plays a team from neighboring Pakistan in an exhibition match.
Following me? With generous servings of the ‘Yash Chopra Punjab’ displayed through vibrant colours, foot-tapping music and larger-than-life characters, Dil Bole Hadippa! meanders along without fully figuring out what it wants to be. Underdog sports tale? Perky, cross-dressing love story? Feminist angle on a patriarchal society? Rhetorical take on women’s empowerment?
Some of the film’s unintentionally comic scenes are when Veera is showcasing her batting skills in front of the London-returned coach, played by Kapoor, because despite the efforts put in the shots are not convincing. Too formulaic and without adequate attention to cricketing detail, Dil Bole Hadippa! falls flat on several levels.
Victory (2009)
Vijay Shekhawat, played by a deadwood Harman Baweja, is a cricket star whose off-field lifestyle derails his career and leaves him with a brain hemorrhage (go figure that one out). But because this is Hindi cinema, Shekhawat miraculously recovers and makes it back to the Indian cricket team, and soon, finds himself needing to lead the team to victory against the mighty Australians. Going one better than Patiala House, this film ropes in Michal Hussey, Brett Lee, Brad Hogg and Brad Haddin for some on-field action which, not surprisingly, is pretty poorly executed.
The less said about Victory (directed by Ajit Pal Mangat) the better. But you have to doff your hat at what it took the makers to assemble the best lineup of professional cricketers in one film: 43 international-level players, including AB de Villiers, Graeme Smith, Chaminda Vaas, Kumar Sangakkara, Muttiah Muralitharan, Sanath Jayasuriya, Suresh Raina and Rohit Sharma, make an appearance in Victory.
If only they had the power to make the film’s cricket scenes believable.
***
Jamie Alter is a sports writer and journalist in the digital world, having covered cricket around the world including three World Cups. After nearly five years working for ESPNcricinfo, Jamie served as Sports Editor of the Times of India Digital, Cricbuzz, Cricketnext and most recently as Group Sports Editor (Digital) at Zee Media. He also also authored two cricket-related books and dabbled in acting. You can find him on Twitter: @alter_jamie.
