Amol Muzumdar, the real-life Kabir Khan of cricket's Chak De girls

The synergy between Indian cricket and Bollywood is nothing new — take just a few recent examples such as Shabaash Mithu based on Mithali Raj having released in 2022 and the much talked about Chakda Xpress based on Jhulan Goswami in the making since 2023. Now, social media imagination is running riot about Amol Muzumdar — coach of the World Cup winning women’s team — in whom netizens see shades of Shah Rukh Khan’s portrayal of Kabir Khan in Chak De! India.

The similarity between the reel-life coach and Amol is only tenuous — Kabir Khan, labelled a traitor after India lost a crucial hockey match to Pakistan in his heyday — went on to coach a ragtag squad to become World Cup champions. The story is loosely based on the life of Mir Ranjan Negi, a former Indian goalkeeper, and the runaway hit in 2007 was directed by Shimit Amin.

Amol’s story is not as dramatic, but the similarity lies in the fact that he realised his unfulfilled ambition of making it big on the international stage through his wards when Harmanpreet Kaur & Co. came back from the brink to win India its first-ever ICC World Cup in Mumbai last night.

For the soft-spoken 50-year-old Mumbaikar, it was a case of being born in the wrong time as his peak in first class cricket — in which he scored 11,000-plus runs at an average of nearly 50 — coincided with that of Sachin Tendulkar and the Fab Four.

Despite being hailed as the ‘New Tendulkar’ when he made his Ranji debut in 1994 with a marathon 260, an international call-up eluded him all along despite dominating the domestic scene for two decades. Amol has been no stranger to waiting, with a famous story about him sitting padded up when two of his Sharadashram Vidyamandir schoolmates — Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli — were engaged in a world record 664-run stand in a Harris Shield match.

The dressing room of the Women in Blue was in a state of flux with no permanent coach, and them failing to make the knockout stages of the last edition of the ODI World Cup in New Zealand. And then Amol was named head coach in 2023. The 'Mil-Jhul' raj, as the tenure of Mithali and Jhulan was described by followers of women’s cricket, had just ended, and there was no shortage of doubters about Amol’s credentials.

He had already done the hard yards, having started as the coach of his state and then taking over as batting coach of IPL franchise Rajasthan Royals. A bit of a laidback approach a la Rahul Dravid helped him handle egos in the team well, and expectations began rising when India won its first-ever ODI series in England earlier this year, then snatched a win in a three-match home series against the Aussies just before the World Cup, and has now coped with the pressure of playing in front of a home crowd for the biggest of 'em all.

How did he manage to keep the morale high after the team slipped to three back-to-back losses, which put their chances of making the semis on the line? ‘’Well, we didn’t look at them as losses per se, rather that we couldn’t get over the line despite dominating for a better part of those game,’’ the coach reflected.

There were heartwarming scenes aplenty after the dramatic final as the reticent Amol had tears in his eyes after India pulled it off – with one becoming viral where Harmanpreet touches his feet. ‘’Here is the perfect script for a Chak De! India sequel,’’ a cricket and film buff wrote on his X post. Another X post: read: “If life imitates art, this is the best possible version.’’

 Sumit Purohit, best known for Scam 1992: The Harshad Mehta Story and Srikanth, said Team India’s winning campaign at the ICC Women's World Cup final has ‘’every element of a great film’’ in it.

 Now, is Bollywood listening?