Cricketers emerging as bigger stars than Bollywood biggies

‘That was the match! Yeah baby. This is how we do it baby!, was how Shahid Kapoor reacted on his tweet after the Mohali victory.

“Team India take a bow,” said Genelia D'Souza and “sooo proud of India,” tweeted Sushmita Sen.

These reactions are in sharp contrast to what the Bollywood stars in the '60s did to show their allegiance with the cricketers. Super stars like Raj Kapoor, Dev Anand, Sunil Dutt and Rajender Kumar actually turned out in white baggies to raise funds for a national cause or simply to entertain the ‘faujis' as they fondly called the army men. The likes of Dilip Kumar and Manoj Kumar even financed sports clubs.

Needless to say, Bollywood and cricket have always complemented each other. Whether it was Tiger Pataudi's marriage to Sharmila Tagore or Gary Sobers' fling with Anju Mahendroo or even the Nina Gupta-Vivian Richard live-in relationship, the two still had their own professional ways. Bollywood had a greater following among the masses with new arrivals every Friday.

But with a staple diet of 365-day one-day cricket live on TV, cricketers are emerging as bigger stars than the Bollywood biggies.

No wonder than the tinsel world stars landed up in Mohali in big number, perhaps to be seen rather than see. A certain over-the-hill actor in tri-colour bangles flashed across umpteen times on the giant screen in the stadium and millions of TV screens at home.

A paid air time for the same insertions would have cost her a fortune.

Impact on Bollywood

This World Cup, more so a title-win for India, is going to impact Bollywood in a big way. There will sure be many more ‘nach baliye', reality shows and parties where the cricketers will take precedence over the film stars. And the stars know it too well. A young model has already announced her intentions of streaking in case India win against Sri Lanka.

Unlike in the past, film stars are more than keen to share space with cricketers who at best add to the bench strength of Team India.

No film star, even Shah Rukh Khan, has ever enjoyed as big a cut-out hoarding as Harbhajan Singh's outside the Wankhede Stadium.

So the Bollywood stars will surely like to ride the cricket bandwagon.

World Cup has already impacted the film trade. It had to take a break from releasing big banner films. The clever ones, however, used the Cup to their advantage.

The music of ‘ Dum Maro Dum ' was launched in the presence of fans at a packed Nagpur stadium just after Sachin Tendulkar's century against South Africa.

The corporate world, too, knows it full well. They have already made cricket a brand.

It's no more a game that brought cheers to the masses on sheer cricketing talent. The sport has come a long way from Farookh Engineer's Brylcreem and Kapil Dev's ‘mera nahane wala sabun' (bathing soap) commercials to a multi-million industry.

Soft drink advertisements released during the World Cup are etched in people's mind more clearly than the square cuts or the cover drives.

With all their love for cricket, corporate giants were also in Mohali to keep their IPL interest intact.

And now in Mumbai, the performance by the ‘Men In Blue' will surely impact the ad sales revenues in the fourth season of IPL, beginning from Apil 8.

Cricketers are no more than moving billboards for the corporate honchos.

( The writer is a senior sports journalist )

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