Difficult to play along with this sports fantasy

Johnson Thomas

What are the chances of a cricketer without an arm being called in for national sports duty? Next to nil is my estimate. Especially since cricketing is not only about a specialised skill, it is also about an above-average all-round skill, which includes fielding among other things. But R Balki and his fancy story writers believe otherwise. This film, inspired by Karoly Takacs’ one-armed (left-handed) shooting exploits at the Olympics, where he won two gold medals, doesn’t translate comfortably into a cricketing scenario that is a team sport and not an individual one.

And no amount of monologues or statistics can help the audience buy a story that feels way out of left field. Our young woman batting prodigy Anina (Saiyami Kher) loses her right hand in an unfortunate accident on the eve of her international cricketing debut. So was it magic that brought into her life an unsympathetic, failed and frustrated cricketer, an alcoholic to boot, Padam Singh Sodhi aka Paddy (Abhishek Bachchan), just in time to save her from despondency?

He manages to egg her on to a new dream, transforming her into a bowler, with a ‘ghoomer’, a new style of bowling they invent. And she manages to make an entry into the Indian women’s cricket team. So far so ridiculous, I’d say.

Abhishek Bachchan does try to lend perspective to this cause by serenading the audience with a passionate monologue that trumps magic over logic. Anina’s grandmother Shabana Azmi, who is the resident cricket expert and also a Roger Federer fan and a health nut, chews and spits out ICC cricket rules, regulations, trivia, etc, in a concerted effort to get the audience on board this floating hedonistic space high on weed. And Amitabh Bachchan is not far behind, trying to lend thespian support to his son’s Bollywood career by marking his presence in the commentators’ box.

This sort of exploration of sports, tragedy and patriotism is definitely not the right fit for a team sport. It may be well understood that cricket is the only sport that sells in India but adapting every story to fit into that zone is a disservice to the craft of storytelling itself. Balki, along with Rahul Sengupta and Rishi Virmani, charges up the screenplay with several conversations that digress from the point at hand. Concocting sequences that defy logic and good screenplay sense, they come up with sequences like the one having Paddy ask Anina, who is in a saree on Diwali day, to bowl in torchlight. The scene is well shot, but the writing misses the point entirely. Paddy’s emotional monologue recounting how his journey in cricket lasted a single match is strategically placed to get you teary-eyed and empathetic to his cause. And in the scene when he takes out his worn-out shoes and dirty jersey, a tell-tale reminder of unfulfilled goals in his life, you are expected to feel for him as the underdog.

Balki attempts to camouflage his error in judgment with a lot of emotionally charged moments. The melodrama is also smattered with humour but it’s to no avail. Instead of creating an unshakeable, convincing central core, they end up belittling the very idea that there could be something worthwhile in this sports dramedy.