Nisar Dharma
Cricketer Irfan Pathan is remembered for his banana swing spells especially the one he bowled against Pakistan in 2006 when he made history by picking up a hat-trick in the very first over of the test match played in Karachi.
Irfan then tried his hands on batting, showed prowess, but while he was swinging his bat, he lost his swing as a quickie, only to find himself out of Team India.
But the Gujarat lad didn’t give up and continued with decent performances in the domestic circuit even as he took international cricket commentary assignments.
His career brought him to Kashmir as well. In 2019, months before the Article 370 abrogation, Irfan joined J&K team as a mentor-cum-coach.
But he had to call it quits right around the August 5, 2019 move when he and dozens of other non-local players were asked to leave Kashmir.
And now nearly a year and a half later, Irfan has worn another hat, that of an actor. And if you are thinking Irfan, once called India’s Wasim Akram (though it was too early to make the comparison with the great Waz), has begun his acting career as a protagonist, you are wrong.
Enter ‘Cobra’, the Tamil flick in which Irfan marks his debut on the silver screen in a role where he it pitted against Chiyaan Vikram.
Directed by Ajay Gnanamuthu and Music by AR Rahman, the teaser of the movie came out last Friday.
Industry buzz suggests Vikram will be seen in more than 20 looks in Cobra. Pathan is playing the role of a Turkish Interpol Officer who is after Vikram, the lead role of the film, who is a genius mathematician.
Irfan’s initial looks got him a good response from the public even as the teaser clocked over 1.3 crore views so far.
“The music composer has two Oscars. The debutant actor has One Hat-Trick,” commented a YouTube viewer after watching the teaser.
The filmmakers had plans to release the movie during summer this year. But the pandemic spoiled the release plans. The film’s cast and crew were shooting in Russia in March. But, due to the COVID outbreak, they were forced to stop the shoot and fly back home.
Besides Vikram and Irfan, the film also stars KS Ravikumar, Srinidhi Shetty, Mrinalini, Kanika, Padmapriya and Babu Antony.
