Television producer Ekta Kapoor says that when Sachin Tendulkar played, her shows suffered

It is often said that Sachin Tendulkar – the God of Indian Cricket, was the one who united India, simply because every time he came out to bat, people in unison watched him play, keeping all other work aside. Remember MS Dhoni’s dialogue from Sachin Tendulkar’s biopic when he says “Main ghar pe bol deta tha ki jab Sachin crease pe aaye, mujhe bata dena.” This holds true not just for Dhoni but the whole of India.

When the Little Master came out to bat, everything else could wait, office assignments, studies, outings and everything under the sun. Whenever he was at the crease, nobody dared change the channel and the women who love to watch TV soaps would watch him too. Famous television producer Ekta Kapoor has expressed the same sentiments. She said that whenever she launched a new show, she checked to see if no cricket tournament featuring India would clash with it.

“Every time I put up a new show on air, I hope it’s not cricket season. Because I used to know when Sachin used to play, as you could see the TRPs of my show. I used to ask ‘what happened’, and got the answer ‘oh Sachin played’. That was the only time they used to get affected. It was the same even during ‘Kyunki…’ and ‘Kahaani…’ times,” Ekta told reporters at an event in Delhi.

TV character based on Hardik Pandya?!

Ekta also confessed that she is not a fan of cricket and does not follow it much but she has heard of Hardik Pandya, who is making a lot of noise in international cricket. Surprisingly, in Ekta’s upcoming show ‘Kundali Bhagya’ the character played by actor Dheeraj Dhoopar can loosely be associated with, Hardik Pandya.

“I’m not a fan of cricket. But I’ve been hearing a lot about this young cricketer Pandya. I haven’t seen much of him but I hear he’s quite an IPL sensation. For writing the story, we thought why not pick a character like this who is likely to get placed in the national cricket team. We thought this is an interesting world to explore. There’s so much madness about it. But, I’ve heard the gentleman is quite well behaved and polite,” she said.