For his next film, Victory, Harman Baweja takes on the role of a professional cricket player and he is finding that it is a very difficult job to have. For the film, Harman had to play against some of the who’s who of professional cricket including Brett Lee, Stuart Clark, Mike Hussey, Mohammed Ahmed and Abhijeet Sharma.
In an interview with IANS Harman said, “Earlier in Australia, I played with Brett Lee, Stuart Clark and Mike Hussey. I’d like to think I looked authentic enough playing with them. Now I’m playing with Rajasthan’s Ranji players. And I’m having a ball because although I’m playing a cricketer I’m playing for real. Man, you can’t fake it with these guys. And considering Rajasthan has just won the IPL (Indian Premier League), you can imagine how good these guys are at the game.”
About his role he said, “It’s the story of a cricketer Vijay Shekhawat’s rise from a small town player to a national level cricketer. My big moment came when these Ranji players said I played well. They told me there’s a lot more to cricket than just the shot.” He added, “They said I looked convincing in the way I wore my helmet, gloves, stood my ground, ran and connected with the field. I worked on all of that.”
For one scene, Harman had to shoot for 12 hours in the sun, “By the end of it, I was ready to collapse. Everyone else in the crew had breaks. They ran under trees, checked the monitor in the shade while I had to stand in the burning sun and play non-stop for 12 hours, rehearsing and doing final takes. I’m so exhausted by the heat I can collapse right now.”
Fortunately, Harman did not have to start from scratch and learn the game of cricket, “As far as playing the game goes, I was a cricket player from school and college. So I only needed to brush up the game. It was getting the other details about a cricketer’s personality right that was tough.”
Guess we will have to wait and see who won the match when the film hits theaters. We will keep up on the score of Victory so watch this space for more.
