Mumbai: Sourav Ganguly’s biopic ‘Dada’, starring Rajkummar Rao as the former India captain, found itself in an unexpected controversy over a recent shooting stint in England.
The shoot in question took place at Grace Road, the home ground of Leicestershire County Cricket Club, four days before the team faced Glamorgan in a County Championship match at the same ground.
Leicestershire won the match by 42 runs and were awarded 19 points.
However, a disciplinary panel handed Leicestershire a 27-point penalty as well as a £5,000 fine for breaching pitch regulations.
The panel upheld the Cricket Regulator’s charge of preparing a “poor pitch” for the match, held from August 20 to 23, and imposed a stiff punishment.
The pitch offered uneven bounce, “created by moving cracks”, the panel ruled. Match referee Ian Ramage provided 43 examples of uneven bounce in his match log.
Leicestershire head groundsman Callum Lewin pointed to the film shoot in trying to explain why the pitch was not prepared properly.
Lewin told the Cricket Regulator that the pitch prepared for the match against Glamorgan was affected by a series of circumstances that were beyond his control.
“It’s a used pitch this time around. We had two T20s on it 10 weeks ago. There were a lot of circumstances leading up to the game that were just out of my control, such as the weather being 35 degrees,” the head groundsman said.
“We also had an unscheduled Bollywood filming event four days before (the match against Glamorgan), and I wasn’t allowed to work on the pitch. I wasn’t allowed to cover it or anything,” Lewin complained.
The explanation, however, did not impress the disciplinary panel, which pointed out that the shoot was held for only one day at Grace Road.
The upcoming biopic on Ganguly will see Saswata Chatterjee playing Chandi Ganguly and Tanya Maniktala essaying the role of Dona Ganguly.
