Mumbai: From the 22-yard to the 70mm silver screen, things have changed for the 1983 World Cup-winner Balwinder Singh Sandhu. As he moves from the cricket world to the filmi Duniya, cricket is still fresh in the mind of this seamer. Although his memories of the 1983 World Cup is still fresh, he does not want to compare from the old school of thoughts of this gentleman’s game to what it is today, however the lanky seamer is of the opinion that India has the best chance to win the championship, going by the strength of the side led by Virat Kohli. “The side is one of the best in the championship, we have the best batsmen, and our bowling is second to none. And we have the all-rounders who have proved. Hardik Pandya, Kedar Jadhav have done the impossible in recent times,” said Sandhu about the side.
Talking about Gautam Gambhir’s statement of the team falling short of one seamer, Sandhu asked to ask him to name the other seamer who will fit into the team. “We have the best seam attack of the country and I don’t think there is anybody else”, said Sandhu who lead the seam attack of the 1983 winning team. However, for the bowler who opened the floodgates for India by dismissing Gordon Greenidge with an in-swinger in the 1983 World Cup final against the West Indies, to give a memorable start and lay the foundation of India’s historic victory, cricket has changed in leap and bounds which according to him is good for money and not for the game.
“Those days are gone when we use to say that the players play a BIG role in the game, but today it is the Television and nothing else which controls the game all over the world”, is what the Sandhu feels as India converge into the English Summer to regain the title which they had won in the year 2011. Talking about crunch matches, the former seamer said, that the games will be decided in the last ten overs of the match either by the 97 or 99th over which give the best TRP for TV. “Good for the TV and bad for the game to put it the other way. And the end I don’t blame TV as they pour money or I would say money has a big role to play in present day’s cricket.” So at the end, it’s Lights – Camera – Action from no-balls, wides, byes for Sandhu, who as of now sets off to United Kingdom on a three-month lay-off. Not for the ICC 2019 World Cup, but for the film by Kabir Khan, ‘83, where he is a consulting director of the movie.
