Amitabh Bachchan’s Cricket Connection

It’s October 11, and time to wish our Shahenshah happy birthday once again. India has two passions, movies and cricket and like Lata Mangeshkar, Amitabh Bachchan too has keen interest in cricket and never fails to encourage the Indian cricket team and its players. Let’s revisit some of his interesting moments/incidents concerning cricket.

Indo-Pak T-20 World Cup match

At Eden Gardens on the invitation of former Captain Sourav Ganguly, who was the CAB President, it was Big B who sang the National Anthem ahead of the match between Indian and Pakistan before a packed stadium, the two teams, Chief Minister Mamata Bannerjee and Sourav himself.  Like the entire country, Amitabh too calls Sourav Dada and said “how can i say no to dada”. For Pakistan, their National anthem was sung by singer Shaqfat Amanat Ali, who said it was an honour for him to sing the anthem along with Amitabh.

Commentary with Kapil Dev, Arun Lal, Rahul Dravid and Shoaib Akhtar 

Amitabh made his commentary debut in the India-Pakistan cricket World Cup game in Adelaide during the 2015 world cup. This was as part of a promotional activity for his upcoming film Shamitabh as revealed by his son Abhishek and director R Balakrishnan. Abhishek said that his dad was working very hard for the commentary debut and was a bit nervous as well, though he had the best voice in the world. He shared commentary screen space with Arun Lal and Shoaib Akhtar and later said that doing commentary with legends like Kapil and Rahul was a big honour for him.

Subsequently, Amitabh and the Rawalpindi Express faced the media. Amitabh informed that he was a big fan of Akhtar and his raw pace and while Shoaib may not remember he had met him once at an airport. Shoaib, like an excited schoolboy said “How can i forget meeting you. It was during the 2003 World Cup and we met at Durban airport”

Blessings to the India Blind Cricket team for winning the 2018 World Cup

In January 2018, India defeated the Pakistan team and won the 2018 Blind world cup at Sharjah and Amitabh was one of the 1st to congratulate the Indian team. He has always been a source of encouragement to the regular team as well and also to individual players as well for good performances.

Best wishes to Bumrah and Prithvi

Way back as on April 4, 2013, Amitabh had tweeted “Mumbai Indians discovery- Jasprit Bumrah, unusual action, and two wickets in first appearance already; aieegaa”.  Five years later, Bumrah is one of the main stays of the team in all formats. Just a week back on October 4, 2018, he had similarly blessed Indian teenager Prithvi Shaw for scoring a debut test ton and asking him to continue to rise and bring greater honour to the game and the country. There are various such examples and these two are just illustrations.

Mistakes while tweeting

Amitabh had twice committed mistakes while tweeting. He congratulated the Indian women’s cricket team for ODI and T20 series win versus Australia while it should have been South Africa. Similarly in the Nidahas T20 trophy win over Bangladesh, where Dinesh Karthik (DK) took India to a win with a last ball 6, he while congratulating DK said that in last 2 overs 24 runs were required when actually it was 34.

In both the cases, the mega star quickly rectified his tweets and promptly apologised as well.

Amitabh Bachchan and Sachin Tendulkar

When the biopic , ‘Sachin, a billion dreams’ was made, Amitabh attended the premier with his son Abhishek and daughter-in-law Aishwarya. He said that he loved the biopic as it showed how someone from humble beginnings can put up a fight and make the country so proud. He wanted it to be shown in every school and wanted every Indian in the country to see it.

Last year, Sachin revealed an interesting incident concerning the megastar and his son Arjun. It was during a commercial and in between shots Arjun, who was just 18 months was sitting on their laps. He was eating an orange and after finishing it he coolly wiped his hands on Amitabh’s kurta. Sachin said he did not know where to look and was very embarrassed.

Happy Birthday Amitabh Bachchan and all the best for your next release “Thugs of Hindostan“.

Looking forward to many more blockbusters.