Kriti Kharbanda’s passion for cricket is quite evident in the excitement that the actress feels every time she is on the cricket ground. In fact, she says that her love for the game is at par with her love for cinema. “I am a total cricket buff. I thoroughly enjoy watching the game. In fact, a group of my friends are going to Australia for the Cricket World Cup and I was so tempted to join them and the only reason I backed out was because of my prior commitments,” she says.
Kriti admits that her cricketmania is inherited from the three generations of males in her family.
”My grandfather, father and my brother have always enjoyed watching the game and cheering on the players. I grew up in such a space and have always watched cricket. I used to be equally excited during an Indo-Pak match and stay glued to the TV. But that does not mean that I don’t enjoy other games. I follow all games and especially enjoy India-Australia games because they are at par with each other and it ends up being an exciting match. I regularly follow IPL because the 20/20 format is less time-consuming. Since, I have limited time, I mostly watch the India games,” says the actress.
Kriti is the brand ambassador for Karnataka Bulldozers and is behind the team all the way and is happy with the way the team is scoring in each game.
“Everybody knows that the team is very competitive and under Sudeep’s captainship takes every match seriously. I don’t see anybody taking the games lightly and thus we are doing well. You can’t fake excitement and my excitement on ground is one hundred per cent genuine.”
She continues, “Though we didn’t have too much of support when we played at Mumbai, at Bengaluru, when the team played opposite Bengal Tigers, the entire stadium was resonating with people on their feet and cheering the team on.
Kriti still hopes to make it to Australia especially if India makes it to the finals. “If not on the ground, I will be following every game on television. Though I don’t remember half the names of the cricketers, I recognise them by their faces and when I start watching the game, I am glued till the very end,” she says.
On the film front, Kriti believes in waiting till something good comes along.
My standards have gone up after my film Googly and irrespective of the box office results, I was genuinely happy with my roles in Tirupathi Express, Superro Ranga and Belli,” she says.
Kriti feels that she is doing so much more with her life right now. “With films, all you do is wake up early at 5 am and go to the sets and come back. In the recent past, I have not been offered roles that excite me but still I feel that I am not missing out on anything. I am not doing Hitler because of the same reason. So my excitement at the moment is centred around the Karnataka Bulldozers and their performance on the cricket field.”
Actors Ravichandran, Ramesh Aravind, Priyanka, Parul Yadav, Rakshit Shetty and Aishani were among the host of celebrities who were at the Chinnaswamy Stadium on Monday evening to cheer the Karnataka Bulldozers.