Nagesh Kuknoor’s fascination with blue obviously didn’t end at Hyderabad. In his newest offering ‘Iqbal’ — to be released world wide on August 26 — his young protagonist is chasing the Indian cricket team’s official one-day colours.Kuknoor has stacked his narrative with all plausible handicaps, which can deter an aspirant from making it to the big league: a speech and hearing disability, a humble family, snooty-and-jealous co-trainers and even an initially reluctant, and intoxicated coach.The vision of a Goliath couldn’t get more multi-pronged and looming than this. Except that Kuknoor’s David is no willow-wielder, but dreams of making it big with the ball. This effort to focus on the harder-working, yet lesser-fancied breed of bowlers may possibly point to India’s new-found and nascent realisation of their general utility to a cricket team. But, we would be mistaken in thinking that even this finely crafted film might trigger a speedster-boom. Indian cinema’s cric-flicks, without any exception, have dwelled on a batsman’s heroics, where bowlers are supposed to look big and act silly and small. Aamir Khan essayed the batter’s role to mathematic perfection in the climax of Awwal Number, and clinched his second match-winning performance in the epic Lagaan.Kukunoor though, has ditched that trodden path and desisted from showing the underdog hit the predictable last-ball six, which makes you cringe uncomfortably at the thought of that eternal nightmare — Javed Miandad.Challenging cricket’s uptown boys — in this case a snobbish batsman with short studs and high connections who is graduating to India ranks from one of the many upmarket academies, Iqbal drops his sweat and works hard and furious to dislodge stumps and bails on his way to the Andhra Ranji side.Even in his ultimate moment of reckoning, Iqbal, played by Shreyas Talpade, an occassional club-player and full-time stage actor, does not conjure three stumps flying on impact in three different directions for dramatic effect, but devises a delivery that would be a thinking, scheming bowler’s ultimate delight.‘‘I always wanted to write an underdog story, and cricket was a backdrop which was easily identifiable. The focus was on a bowler since they are always neglected while the batsmen hog all the attention,’’ Kuknoor said.The story, based in fictional small town Kolipad, and shot in the legend-laden Tenali, is also a throwback to the largely-undocumented struggles of small centre cricketers. But for long, the image of an Indian cricket star has only meant a batsman on some godly rampage. With Iqbal, the Indian bowler - essentially the underdog within the underdogs, comes of age.
