Taapsee Pannu will soon be stepping into the shoes of Indian cricket icon Mithali Raj for a biopic which will now be helmed by National Award-winning director Srijit Mukherji instead of Rahul Dholakia, who was earlier slated to direct the film. In an exclusive chat , Srijit, who is an avid cricket fan, reveals how excited he is for his first sports film, and also opened up on how he came on board the project. Excerpts:

How did you come on board 'Shabaash Mithu'?
Well, Ajit Andhare and I were planning to do a sports film since a long time; right from the time when we were discussing doing a biopic on Sourav Ganguly. Then we collaborated on ‘Ray’. We almost came together to do a series on cricket too. Hence, when this offer finally came my way, I just lapped it up.

This will be your first sports film...
I feel very excited about it! Stories in this genre were missing from my filmography. I’m also more excited because cricket is my first love, and I finally get to do something related to the game.

Have you done some prep work?
Not really. I have always been a cricket buff and research a lot on the game. I have myself played cricket till university. So there was nothing to done except whatever goes into the usual pre-production of a film.

How do you think will Taapsee Pannu fit into Mithali Raj's role?
Very smoothly! Taapsee is one of the finest actors we have in India today. She’s a very hungry actress and puts in her 100 per cent in whatever role she takes up. This is going to be something new for her too; she hasn’t done anything like this before. She’s going to do an absolutely brilliant job!

Joy Sengupta: I always seek to work with the kind of things that excite me

Shruti Haasan reveals three things

When Kichcha Sudeep shared how one needs to look at things positively during the pandemic