'83: It Took Ranveer Singh "4 Hours Of Cricket A Day For 6 Months" To Become Kapil Dev
NDTV
"At the end of the process, I have become a decent enough bowler also," said the actor
Becoming Kapil Dev wasn't easy for Ranveer Singh but he played cricket for "4 hours a day for 6 months" to transform for his role in Kabir Khan's '83. The actor features as Kapil Dev, who was the captain of the 1983 cricket World Cup-winning team, in the film. Talking about how he managed to deliver nearly-perfect bowling like Kapil Dev in the film, Ranveer Singh said: "He has a very unique bowling action and his bio-mechanics are very unique to him. My body is very different from his so I had to transform my physicality drastically in order to achieve it. It took a long time, in fact, months to perfect the action," reported news agency ANI.
Ranveer had started shooting for '83 after finishing the schedule of his 2018 film Simbba. He played the role of a cop in the Rohit Shetty-directed film. The transformation from a cop to Kapil Dev took Ranveer Singh several months. Former cricketer Balwinder Singh Sandhu, one of the legends of the 83-world cup, used to coach Ranveer during that period.
The actor was quoted as saying by ANI: "Initially, my body was too heavy because I was coming off of the shoot of Simmba. Our coach noticed that my body was too heavy and he said, Jab tu run-up mein aata hai toh tu aisa lagta hai ki pehelwan bowling karne aa raha hai.' And he sent me away for a month just to change my physicality to bring it closer to Kapil's athleticism and then once I did that, I started making some headway."
Ranveer Singh practiced for several hours per day to achieve perfection in bowling like Kapil Dev. "I was playing cricket for 4 hours a day for 6 months and doing physical conditioning for 2 hours a day for those 6 months. Four months of prep and 2-3 months of shoot, I put in a lot of hours," he said, reported ANI.
