In a cricket-crazy nation like India, Sachin Tendulkar was nothing short of a demi-god. On the other hand, during the 90’s TV producer Ekta Kapoor too flourished just like the batting maestro. Then it was like when the little master took strike, it brought the entire nation to a standstill. That is exactly how large the ‘Sachin Tendulkar’ aura was.
Ekta Kapoor expressed the same sentiments at a recent event in Delhi. She said that whenever she launched a new show, she checked to see if no cricket tournament featuring India would clash with it.
“Every time I put up a new show on air, I hope it’s not cricket season. Because I used to know when Sachin used to play, as you could see the TRPs of my show. I used to ask ‘what happened’, and got the answer ‘oh Sachin played’. That was the only time they used to get affected. It was the same even during ‘Kyunki…’ and ‘Kahaani…’ times,” Ekta told the reporters.
The producer also confessed that she is not a fan of cricket and does not follow it much but she has heard of Hardik Pandya, who is an IPL sensation. Interestingly, in Ekta’s upcoming show ‘Kundali Bhagya’ the character played by the actor Dheeraj Dhoopar can loosely be associated with Hardik Pandya.
“I’m not a fan of cricket. But I’ve been hearing a lot about this young cricketer Pandya. I haven’t seen much of him but I hear he’s quite an IPL sensation. For writing the story, we thought why not pick a character like this who is likely to get placed in the national cricket team. We thought this is an interesting world to explore. There’s so much madness about it. But, I’ve heard the gentleman is quite well behaved and polite,” she said.