Top 5 Indian professional sportsmen who featured in movies

As Indians, most of us are obsessed with movies, especially because the Indian movie industry produces, by far, the highest number of movies in the world.

Even though most of our sportspersons may not necessarily belong to the above group, many have tried, and just a few of our professional athletes have been successful at this attempt at a second career.

Even though not many of them win the best acting awards, some have become quite successful in their second careers, and even gone on to gain respect in their fraternity.

It would still be interesting to formulate the list of such Indian sportspersons. It was essential that the person had been a professional athlete. Their work in both the sports and acting field, with more emphasis being on their performance in the sporting arena were the main criteria. The overall success as an actor was also duly considered. It was quite difficult choosing the order in the list.

1] Dara Singh:

Topping the list is Dara Singh. He has been a top Indian sportsperson, and also the list of movies he has acted in would be too long to enumerate here. Dara Singh has been very well respected in both the circles, Sports and Bollywood.

Dara Singh was an international wrestler, and has been included in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Hall of Fame in the very year (1996) this list was first published.

Dara Singh has acted in over 100 films. In the Indian film industry, even though he started as a B-grade movie actor, he went on to play some memorable roles as a character actor, and earned the respect of the film fraternity.

2] Vijay Amritraj:

Arguably, Vijay Amritraj is the most well-known name in the history of Indian Tennis. He was a very talented international tennis personality. Many sports lovers may know that Vijay Amritraj was a part of the famous “ABC (Amritraj – Borg – Connors) of World Tennis”, and when the phrase was coined in the early 70s; their talent and potential were in that order as well.

Since Vijay Amritraj had shifted base to California, he made the most of opportunities of being associated with the Hollywood movie industry. Not only has been involved with film production, but he has acted in very well known movies like Octopussy (James Bond movie), Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, and Nine Deaths of the Ninja, apart from many Television series too.

3] Norman Pritchard (Norman Trevor):

He was an International Track Athlete from India who represented Great Britain in the Olympics in 1900. He was the first Indian athlete to participate in the Olympics, and also the first Athlete from the Asian Nations to win a medal in the Olympics.

Later he moved to the United States where he became an actor in the silent movie era under the screen name Norman Trevor. He acted alongside Hollywood legends like Ronald Calvin in films like Beau Geste (1926), Clara Bow’s father in Dancing Mothers (1926) and Tonight at Twelve (1929). He also appeared in several Broadway shows.

4] Sunil Gavaskar: Widely regarded as the greatest opening batsman in Test history in cricket, Sunil Gavaskar has set world cricketing records in his playing career for the highest number of Test runs, and highest number of Test centuries. His record of 34 test centuries stood for about 10 years till 2005, when it was broken by Sachin Tendulkar. Gavaskar was widely admired for his technique against fast bowling, with a high average of 65.45 runs against the deadly West Indian four-pronged pace attack. Gavaskar was also a member of the 1983 Cricket World Cup winning Indian team.

Even though Sunil Gavaskar has not been too succesful in his movie career, his claim to fame in the movie industry is attributed to a lead role in a Marathi film “Savli Premachi”. He also did a guest role in a Hindi movie “Maalamal”.

5] Ajay Jadeja: Even though Ajay Jadeja’s cricketing achievements were overshadowed by a 5-year ban for match-fixing (quashed by Delhi High Court in 2003), he was a popular cricketer, well known for scoring quick runs through big hits in the finishing overs. He played 15 Tests and 196 One Day Internationals for India between 1992 and 2000, and was a regular member of the Indian squad. He was also the best fielder in the Indian cricket team during his time.

Jadeja has been associated as a cricketing anchor and analyst with various television channels, apart from stints on live/reality shows on TV. Ajay Jadeja was the top-billed actor in the movie Pal Pal Dil Ke Ssaat, in the year 2009. He also had an important role in the movie Khel (2003) alongside stars like Sunny deol and Sunil Shetty.

Players that did not make the cut

6) Kapil Dev:

Kapil Dev has been associated with Indian Cricket as player, coach and selector. He captained the 1983 Cricket World Cup Indian team, and has also been named by Wisden as the Indian Cricketer of the Year (2002). Being the only player to have scored more than 5000 runs and taken more than 400 wickets in Tests, he is one of the greatest all-rounders to have played the game, and has been inducted into the ICC Hall of Fame in 2010.

His stint with the film industry has only been as having played cameos in some well known hindi films like Iqbal, Chain Khuli ki Main Khuli and Mujhse Shadi Karogi. Of course, he has endorsed many products commercially, the most famous being his ad: “Palmolive da jawab nahin”.

7] Leander Paes:

Probably the most successful Indian tennis professional till date, Leander Paes currently plays in the Doubles events in the Davis Cup and the ATP circuit. He has won a total of 13 Grand Slam titles in Doubles (seven) and Mixed Doubles (six). Also, he has been the recepient of the highest sports honour, the Rajiv Gandhi Khel ratna Award in 1996-97, the Arjuna Award in 1990, and Padma Shri in 2001.

Leander is set to make a debut on the Rajdhani Express. The film is a socio-political thriller, and it is said that Leander plays a terrorist in the film. He has also been offered his first Hollywood script, though there isn’t much known about this matter till now.

8] Vinod Kambli:

Even though Vinod Kambli is probably best known for his unbeaten 664 run partnership with Sachin Tendulkar in school cricket in Mumbai, he scored two double centuries and two centuries in the seven Tests that he played for India. He was one of the best over-the-top hitters of spin bowling.

Vinod Kambli has also appeared as an actor in two films. He has (not insignificant) roles in the film Annarth (2002) alongside Sanjay Dutt and Sunil Shetty, and Pal Pall Dil Ke Ssath alongside felow cricketer Ajay Jadeja and Satish Shah.