UPPING THE GAME

More and more filmmakers have begun hoping that a focus on cricket will help their films knock it out of the park

- Suhani Singh

Kabir Khan was both “shocked and thrilled” when he realised that no one had told the story of how India came to lift the 1983 World Cup. In an interview conducted in 2020, a few months before his ’83 was scheduled to release, Khan said, “It’s a goldmine. It’s the best story I have heard in my life. It is unbelievable what these boys went through.” Releasing on December 24, ’83 follows Kapil’s Devils for 25 days. It’s a tale of how underdogs triumph, of how India beat the formidable West Indies.

Khan isn’t just recreating a proud moment in India’s sporting history. The film also gives him a way to explore how our team’s journey in England changed things for India and its people. “It is about the coming of age of a country,” says Khan. “It is about what they [the cricket team] represented, the idea of India and how it [the World Cup] changed the way the world looked at us and the way we looked at ourselves.” It isn’t just Khan. There are other filmmakers who see such value in cricket, too.

December, for instance, began with the third season of Inside Edge (2017—) streaming on Amazon Prime, and it will end with the release of Jersey. The remake of a popular Telugu film, the film sees Shahid Kapoor play an erstwhile cricketer who looks to revive his sporting career and redeem himself in the eyes of his young son. For