Kapil Dev hits the silver screen

Having retired from the game, India's cricket legend Kapil Dev is set to play a new innings.

But this time neither with the bat which he has wielded so successfully nor with the ball with which he has claimed more than 400 wickets in tests but as an actor on the big screen of Bollywood.

Dev, captain of World Cup winning team in 1983, will play a role in a feature film on cricket to be produced by Mukta Arts, the company owned by Bollywood's consummate showman and producer-director Subhash Ghai.

A press release issued by the company said the story of the film revolves round the story of a youth who struggles to get into the Indian team.

Bollywood and cricket are two of Indians' biggest obsessions. And when the two worlds combine, one can imagine the magic it can weave.

Only the other day, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had pointed out in a speech in Parliament the popularity of Bollywood and cricket in the country.

It is this magic which eminent poducer-director Subhash Ghai is pinning his hopes on when he announced that India's cricket legend Kapil Dev will feature in his next feature film.

Dev has already acted in some episodes of a popular television serial CID and he will be joining a select group of Indian sportspersons to appear on the Bollywood screen.

With this film, Kapil will join the league of former cricketers Salim Durrani and Salil Ankola and former national champion swimmers Nafisa Ali and Milind Soman who have acted in films.

After Mukta Arts' production of Joggers' Park starring Victor Banerjee and Perizaad Zorabian, which wowed the multiplex audience last year and Kisna, starring Vivek Oberoi early this year which did not make much of an impact on the box office, Ghai is hoping the blend of Kapil and Bollywood stars will set the cash register ringing.