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A Different ball game Director Ajitpal discussing a scene with Aussie cricketer Brett Lee

So, who has brought all those cricketers from Australia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, India and England onto one platform? That too in a film? It’s Ajitpal Mangat, ad filmmaker for Hindustan Lever, Proctor and Gamble and Johnson and Johnson. The fi lm is Victory produced by Manmohan Shetty and directed by Ajitpal. He has just concluded shooting in Jaipur’s Sawai Mansingh Stadium with Australian and Indian cricketers such as Brett Lee, Brad Hogg, Luke Ronchi, Michael Hussey, Stuart Clarke, Simon Katich, Dinesh Karthik, R. P. Singh, Yusuf Pathan, Pankaj Singh and Praveen Kumar.

One might remember Ajitpal in Basu Chatterjee’s film Hamari Shadi, which won him a National Awards nomination for Best Actor, and a few other unnoticed films such as Khatarnak and Tera Nam Mera Nam.

This is Ajitpal’s debut directorial venture with Harman Baweja and Amrita Rao in the cast. The film is already making news because real life cricketers such as Lee, Hogg and R. P. Singh “play vital roles”, says Ajitpal.

“It’s about a boy from a small town (Harman) whose father (Anupam Kher) nurtures the dream of making him a national cricketer,” says Ajitpal during a break in the shooting. “How he goes on to become a star cricketer and how he copes with the pressures of stardom form the crux of the film. It is about what goes on inside a cricketer’s mind. It’s a film on cricket yet my characters are not bigger than the film.”

So how does he manage so many star cricketers together?

“It’s absolutely cool,” he says “Most of these cricketers have no airs because they all come from small towns and have risen to star status. Brett Lee even asked me, ‘Whose story is this,’ because most of them related to the experiences I have shot in the film. As for acting, except Lee, who has really prepared for Bollywood, others had to be guided a little. They had to be told about the ‘expressions’. Lee is fond of make-up too. He used to take a lot of time inside the make-up room,” he says, laughing. Ajitpal says he is also persuading Lee to sing a song for the film “that we will use in the title track.”

To bring reality to the film, Ajitpal shot five whole matches in Melbourne recently.

“When the Australian Cricket Board heard the film would promote cricket, they opened the doors. Harman could actually walk up to the ground during the match. We have taken actual shots of the cricketers’ and the audiences’ reactions.

I have even shot with the cricketers of the 1980s such as Allan Lamb, Waqar Yunus and Allan Border. I have shot in almost all cricket loving nations — Australia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, and England. Believe me, these cricketers have far more respect and star status than film personalities,” he adds. Daryl Harper and Dalip Tahil play umpires in the film.

Why Harman as the protagonist? “I am a cricket enthusiast and I chose Harman because he doesn’t have a big-star image. He is also trained by Pravin Amre,” says the director.

But Shah Rukh Khan was successful in Chak De. “That’s because he is a coach in the film and not a player,” he quips, adding, barring Goal, this is the only film in which real heroes are seen in action.Ajitpal has reasons for not making famous Indian cricketers act opposite Lee and Hogg. “If I had chosen Dhoni or Yuvraj, the attention of the audience would have been more on them than on my hero. They would have taken away all the sheen.” Amrita Rao, he admits, has little to do in the film. “It’s a film about cricket and not a heroine. But she does a balancing act for Harman (as Shikhawat) when he becomes a star.”

Ajitpal is not revealing the budget. “It sounds farcical but we haven’t calculated the budget; let’s accept that IPL players don’t come cheap. They charge almost double the amount of most Bollywood heroes. We will know the actual budget within a month.”

Ajitpal hopes to make up the money with 900 prints to be released across the globe. The film will be released in September-October. Ready for Victory?

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