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“Cricket and cinema really are two religions in this country,” says Kabir Khan, one of Bollywood’s top directors, whose most recent film, 83, was about India’s first World Cup victory in 1983. Bollywood’s love affair with cricket began on a sticky wicket in the late 1950s, with the release of the black-and-white film Love Marriage. There was no cricket on the big screen for several years after Love Marriage. However, in the 1970s, when India defeated England in England and the West Indies in the West Indies – where batsman Sunil Gavaskar’s 774-run debut Test series was celebrated with a calypso song – cricketers became celebrities and even appeared in films.
Despite the fact that these films did not perform well at the box office, Bollywood began to warm up to the idea of releasing cricket-related films around major tournaments and wins in order to capitalize on the cricket craze. Lagaan: Once Upon A Time In India, directed by Ashutosh Gowarikar and starring Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan, was released in 2001. It was a huge success and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Film. Lagaan did not win, but it did break the curse at home. It also divided India’s cricket-in-cinema story into two parts: the drought preceding Lagaan and the deluge following.
Many were forgettable, but a few stood out like Iqbal and MS Dhoni. However, 83 set a new standard for cricket films and inspired many filmmakers. After 83, Bollywood has released five cricket films, including Srijit Mukherji’s Shabaash Mithu, which follows Mithali Raj’s journey from a small town to leading India’s women’s cricket team to the 2017 Women’s World Cup final, where they were defeated by England. The curse appears to have returned. Perhaps genteel nostalgia and the underdog story no longer have resonance in a changing country.
The India-Pakistan Cricket World Cup match in October was a smashing success. The match was watched by 35 million people on Disney+Hotstar and more than 100,000 people in the stadium, where tickets were reportedly sold for as much as 5,700,000 rupees ($69,170).
