Mumbai Indians fetched six cricketers from the recently concluded auction for Indian Premier League (IPL) 2020 and one of those has been 21-year old right arm pacer from Maharashtra, Digvijay Deshmukh. For those not aware, Deshmukh is the same child actor who was seen in the film Bollywood film Kai Po Che alongside Sushant Singh Rajput. Then 14, Deshmukh, had portrayed the role of a young cricketer ‘Ali’ in the 2013 film directed by Abhishek Kapoor based on Chetan Bhagat’s novel, ‘The 3 Mistakes of My Life‘.
Deshmukh has been rewarded for his consistent performance in the latest edition of the Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy (Domestic T20 tournament), where he picked up nine wickets from seven matches. Furthermore, a day after being acquired by the four-time IPL winning side as well as the defending champions Mumbai for his base price of 20 lakh, Deshmukh celebrated the occasion by scoring 83 and registering bowling figures of 4 for 46 against Jammu and Kashmir on his Ranji Trophy debut in Pune.
“I acted in a movie. But I was never an actor. I was always a cricketer. Now I am slowly realising my dream,” Deshmukh told PTI. “I had gone to play an Under-14 school tournament in Mumbai and one of the ADs [assistant director] of the film selected me for audition and then I got the role. Everyone was very nice. I remember playing a lot of cricket with Sushant [Singh Rajput] and Rajkumar Rao. The character was somewhat like me, shy, reticent.”
Despite making it to the silver screen at a very young age, cricket has always been Deshmukh’s first love. Representing the country is his dream and the youngster has only focused on that.
“People would refer to me as just an actor and I would be very angry. It disturbed me. I did the film because a lot of scenes were just about playing cricket. But staying outdoor for four months hampered my cricket and I didn’t want that to happen ever again,” Deshmukh said. “I got an opportunity to do a television commercial but I declined. My parents [his father is a school teacher and mother a homemaker] also supported me.”
It is because of his dedication towards the game, six years after making Bollywood debut, Deshmukh will now be off to the Wankhede Stadium to play for the most successful IPL franchise. Over there he will be sharing the dressing room with the faces he grew up idolising – Rohit Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah, Lasith Malinga, Kieron Pollard and others. This can turn out to be a career-changing opportunity for the young pacer.