Bollywood and Cricket have always been connected, be it through some movie on cricket like Lagaan or Kai Po Che or a biography like Dhoni or a cricketer trying their hands at acting. These connections have always been interesting and intriguing to watch out for. Sometimes these succeed in drawing the audiences to the cinema halls and sometimes they fail ridiculously, but the passion to keep the connection going never dies. There have been instances in past where cricketers themselves have appeared in movie to do a short cameo. Also, there have been numerous cricketers who have tried to make a career out of it. Let’s look at some of these kinds of cricketers.
Yuvraj Singh
The stylish left-hander did not appear in movies during his active cricketing career but did gave his voice in an animation film, “Jumbo” in 2008. However, during his childhood Yuvraj did appear on screen in some of the Punjabi movies as a child artist along with his father Yograj Singh.
Yograj Singh
He played 1 test match and 6 ODIs for the country but could not get a successful career in the game. He then turned to acting and played roles in more than 30 Punjabi movies and 10 Hindi movies. He was critically acclaimed for his performance in Farhan Akhtar starrer “Bhag Milkha Bhag”, where he played the role of Milkha Singh’s coach.
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Sunil Gavaskar
One of the legends of Indian cricket appeared on silver screen with a Marathi movie ‘Savli Premachi’ and later did a cameo in Naseeruddin Shah’s 1988 film Malaamaal.
Ajay Jadeja
He was one of the explosive batsman of his times, but his career was cut short by the match fixing scandal. He turned to Bollywood for a career and bagged an important role in 2003 film Khel. However, the film failed and jadeja moved to cricket commentary and analysis.
Kapil Dev
The World-Cup winnings captain of India appeared in host of movies including Iqbal, Mujhse Shaadi Karogii and Stumped.
Salil Ankola
One of the very few who had a successful Bollywood career. He featured in movies like Kurukshetra and Chura Liya Hai Tumne. He gained a lot of popularity with a tint in popular TV show ‘Ssshhhh… Koi Hai’. He made his cricketing debut in the same match as of Sachin but failed to make an impact.
Sachin Tendulkar
He appeared on screen with a movie on his life, ‘Sachin: A Billion Dreams’. This movie runs through the life of Sachin and brings out different aspects of it.
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Bret Lee
The former Australian pacer made his debut in an Indo-Australian movie called ‘UnIndian’. Binga, as he is fondly known, plays the lead role in the movie and had appeared on silver screen before as well. He debuted in movies 20 years back, as per a report.
Mohsin Khan
The former Pakistani cricketer who was once the chief selector of Pakistan national cricket team, has a Bollywood debut to his name with P Dutta’s film Batwara in 1989. Later he worked on movies like Fateh with Sanjay Dutt and Saathi in 1991 with Aditya Pancholi. He also appeared in some Urdu movies in Pakistan. Also, the cricketer married actress Reena Roy and had 2 daughters with her.
Salim Durrani
The all-rounder, best known for his uncanny ability to hit sixes at the behest of his fans, appeared in BR Ishara’s Charitra which released in 1973, which could not garner the interest of fans.
Mahendra Singh Dhoni
Captain cool appeared in a Bollywood movie which was never released. The film was named Hook Ya Crook directed by David Dhawan and had Bollywood stars like Kay Kay Menon and Genelia D’Souza.
This is not an exclusive list as there are many players who appeared on the 70mm screen. Hindi movie called Victory starring Harman Baweja, which released in 2009 had 50 international cricketing stars in it. Players like Michael Hussey, Brad Hogg, Brett Lee, Morkel Brothers, Ramesh Powar, Dinesh Karthik, Harbhajan Singh, Mutthiah Muralitharan, Rohit Sharma, Kumar Sangakkara, Martin Crowe, Sanath Jayasurya, Sohail Tanvir, Ashish Nehra, Navjot Singh Sidhu, Graeme Smith, Jacques Kallis, Chaminda Vaas and AB de Villiers, all appeared in the same movie.