There is one, and only one cardinal mistake that Meerabai Not Out commits – it trivializes the national passion. Someone had a smart sounding idea of exploiting cricket as a plot device for a love story with the depth of half a soap episode. Mandira Bedi, after her sacrilegious cricket exploits on the small screen now does it on the silver screen as Meera Achrekar, the cricket fanatic who has a huge crush on Anil Kumble and is about to marry a doctor. But will cricket be the ‘significant other’? That question almost wrecks a relationship, that going by the flow of the script, looked flimsy to begin with. And for those eagerly waiting to see Kumble’s cameo don’t even bother (Jumbo says to Meera at one point ‘You look like Mandira Bedi!’ – Did the writer lose his sense of humor there or his mind? Hard to tell!). Mercifully, unlike one of those drab days of test cricket on a dead subcontinent pitch, Meerabai Not Out is a short um…comedy, love story, sports movie, drama…whatever! And there are about 180 seconds worth watching. Pity, like stray deliveries from Anil Kumble, they are few and very far between.
