Cricketer Suresh Raina To Debut In Tamil Film As A Hero

There is a new player in the eternal Indian cycle in which the cricketers want to be actors on screen and actors want to play cricketers on screen. He is Suresh Raina who will be making his debut as the hero in a Tamil film that has just been announced. Considering the former Test, ODI and IPL batsman has had offers from Bollywood that he turned down in life after cricket, his choice of medium is piquant. But then Raina may have found an easy choice in his favourite city Chennai to take a serious offer to don the greasepaint, that too as the protagonist. And he will be playing a role that may come naturally to him as he is a cricketer in the film. No, it is not a biopic, just a story woven around cricket and politics.  A close lieutenant of Dhoni who was ‘Thala’ (boss or chief), Raina was known as ‘Chinna Thala’ in his CSK playing days when he was as much a batting super star as his boss. Raina may feel at home in Kollywood where he will take on this new role. The film is being directed by Logan for the Dream Knight Stories banner and will be a medium budget release with big ambitions. There have been movies in which cricketers like Bravo, Irfan Pathan and Harbhajan Singh have also starred. Where Raina and his film may end up is anybody’s guess. But this won’t be the last story you will read on cricketers chasing films and film stars chasing cricketers to play them on screen. This cycle began early with Salim Durrani one of the first to try a hand at becoming a matinee star while others like Sandeep Patil also fell for it.