Digvijay Deshmukh played central character in movie Kai Po Che before Mumbai Indians picked him up in IPL 2020 auction

The Indian Premier League is a platform that gives chances to lots of young stars of Indian cricket to shine and make a name for themselves in international cricket. There have been many instances of players being bought in the auction of the league and getting a handful of chances and shining in them. Many of them also managed to don the India colours and some have had stellar careers.

The recent IPL auction for the 2020 edition saw many unknown names of domestic cricket being bought by the eight franchises, mostly for their base prices in order to fulfil the numbers in their squads and it may not be even sure that many of the players will get a chance in the middle to play, but being in the same dressing room as some of the biggest cricket stars may prove to be a learning experience.

One such player who might get valuable time with international stars is Maharashtra’s Digvijay Deshmukh, who is 21 years old and has played one FC match and 7 T20 matches for the state. A right-hand batsman and a right-arm fast-medium bowler, Digvijay has made 104 runs and taken 15 wickets to boot for in those matches.

He was bought by Mumbai Indians for his base price of INR 20 lakhs. However, there is something more interesting than that about Deshmukh and that is that he is already a Bollywood starlet.

Digvijay Deshmukh played Ali Hashmi in Kai Po Che movie

Digvijay Deshmukh a relatively unknown name in Indian cricket, is already a Bollywood actor and has appeared in the much-acclaimed 2013 flick Kai Po Che, featuring Sushant Singh Rajput, Amit Sadh, Rajkumar Rao, Manav Kaul, and others. The movie is based on the three characters of Sushant, Amith, and Rajkummar trying to make a big cricket star of a child prodigy Ali Hashmi, which was played by Deshmukh.

Deshmukh made his real FC debut in 2019-20 Ranji Trophy and had made his Twenty20 debut on 12 November 2019, for Maharashtra in the 2019–20 Syed Mushtaq Ali Trophy. Meanwhile, Mumbai Indians, who bought him, also made a huge buy in Chris Lynn, who was sold at his base price of INR 2 crores, a big fall from more than 9 cr on which KKR had bought him in the first place. The franchise also bought other big names like Nathan Coulter-Nile and Saurabh Tiwary in the auction.

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