Satire: Bollywood calling for top Indian cricketers

Disclaimer: This is a fictional article and is meant to be taken humorously.

There is a proposed project for a movie which has signed the superstars of the Indian cricket team who have had tremendous impact on the Indian cricket for the past year or so. This is seen as a scheme which might provide the cricketers with the alternate career paths since their exploits on the field have benefited the opponents more than their own team.

Lights, Camera, Action! Well, here’s a thing. Since there are no retakes for the cricketers, some of the cricketers were woefully disappointed. Some people like Ravindra Jadeja wanted retakes, especially when he bowls a ball that bounces three times before it reaches the batsman. He wrote a letter to BCCI who took the suggestion of this legendary cricketer.

Virender Sehwag wants a retake of some of the shots he plays. He gets out far too often these days and supports his teammate Jadeja. So, a historic 13-hour meeting by the BCCI officials took place and finally BCCI has decided to cast them in a Bollywood movie. The roles have been finalized for them, well almost. Here’s a detailed report.

The director:

The director of the movie is “Duncan Fletcher”. Ram Gopal Varma is happy that there is at least one director who has more flops than him. Here’s a list of movies directed by Fletcher- England 4 India 0, Australia 4 India 0, England 2 India 1, and movies like Loss in the Asia Cup, CB Series Bye Bye, Welcome Pakistan. Currently, he is producing the movie “England, yet again”.

The item numbers:

This new Bollywood trend is quite interesting. The item numbers provide a glamour quotient, comic relief and often are irrelevant with the main plot. Often, an item number is the movie’s lasting impression. So, if one does not remember the plot of “Tees Maar Khan” , they are surely going to remember the song “Sheila ki Jawani.”

Look at Rohit Sharma’s contribution. The last 12 months have been horrendous for him. But like Malaika Arora, he is “talented” and continues to give small appearances with the bat like Malaika did in Chaiyya Chaiyya or Munni Badnaam Hui.

Guest Appearance:

Nothing can beat Piyush Chawla’s guest appearance in the India colours. He is there for every big occasion. A couple of World cup triumphs, and Chawla was there. Some days, he bowls like Charlie Grimmett, Shane Warne and on some other days people say that even Juhi Chawla is a better bowler than Piyush Chawla. But here is a talismanic cricketer who brings India luck by just being there in the dressing room. His side runs out of luck the moment he is part of the playing XI.

Comic relief:

Meet this legend who hits triple hundreds at will. His exploits earned him a place in the Test team as a batsman. But this triple-hundred machine missed his mark by 288 runs at Nagpur. A few days later he replaced another legend “Rohit Sharma”- in the playing XI- this time as a bowler. No other identity crisis can be of a larger magnitude. Meet this 24-year-old comedian who is surely going to tickle your funny bones with his exploits.

Aversion to the state-of-the-art technology:

The Indian cricketers are technologically challenged. They have a paranoia when it comes to Hot spot, snickometer and even the Hawk-eye. So, the technology used will be minimal. Jadeja and Rohit Sharma, instead of driving a car and chasing the villains, will employ their famous dive – the stunt which helps Indian team save 10-12 runs per match. On the basis of that, if Rohit scores a duck, the team management enters a score of 10-15 in front of his name and hence he gets to play another match. Jadeja, meanwhile, is excited about this stunts since he has performed a lot of them of late. Bowling the last over against Pakistan tops the list, followed by a memorable 12 runs on his debut when he weathered the storm for 20-odd minutes, and edged a couple of boundaries behind the keeper.

The star cast:

Imagine Fardeen Khan, Tushar Kapoor, Zayed Khan, Sonu Sood acting in the same movie. Any predictions what the Bollywood verdict is going to be? Now I am sure the adjectives “disastrous”, “catastrophic” will come to one’s mind when one imagines to watch these four “talented” actors on the 70-mm screen. What could be more torturous than this?

It does not make any difference if Fardeen had done a great job in Hey Baby or Tushar in Golmaal (he did not speak anything, thank heavens) or Zayed in Main Hoon Naa or Sonu in Dabang. Their past performances are redundant and collectively, their “star-cast” is not going to attract audiences (I am brave to say that). Salman’s six-packs, Ranbir’s chocolate-boy looks or Ajay Devgan’s sequence might be a saving grace but still this ambitious project won’t succeed ever. So, here’s a brand new star cast for Fletcher’s next venture.

Here’s our hero, Gautam Gambhir, who is seen everywhere. Across three formats, he has been consistent, in that he has consistently failed across all of them! On the days when he chooses not to edge the deliveries behind the wicket, he is seen getting out bowled. And on the days when he addresses both the shortcomings, he is out leg before wicket. And when he looks well set for a big score, he runs himself out (not before running out some other teammate of his). No other person is as talented as him at the moment, so he is all set to become the lead.

Virender Sehwag is not a man renowned for his footwork. So he may not be seen dancing in the movie. He and Gambhir would engage in a partnership for a song. The duration of the song is reported to be more than their stay at the wicket – as a partnership. So the men are hitting the gym and getting in shape. Sehwag met his favourite actor Aamir Khan and he was enlightened after the meeting. Both the men have remarkable similarities – both of them perform only once every year. Sehwag would do himself and his team a favour by adopting the Aamir Khan like policy- “to do one project per year”. He is doing just that. That way Sehwag would never be criticized for the barrage of reckless shots he plays. After Mangal Pandey, there are going to be stellar performances like – Lagaan and Dil Chahta Hai.

Note: The bowlers are too busy bowling opposition batsmen out (it takes them about a month to bowl out the opponents). Since these stars – Sehwag, Gambhir, Rohit, Jadeja – are always available (they hardly play 10-15 balls), BCCI has decided to sign them. So go to your nearest theaters to see the men who have made our country proud, in a “different avatar.”

Disclaimer: This is a fictional article and is meant to be taken humorously.