Samir Kochhar gets sporty!

Actor Samir Kochhar has been quite literally busy running around but not just with his acting and hosting stints. The IPL Extraaa Innings host, and Rajat Kapoor from Sony TV's Bade Ache Lagte Hain, can be found sweating it out on the playground with his team of boys for Celebrity Cricket League (CCL) team Mumbai Heroes along with the likes of Shabir Ahluwalia, Varun Badola, Rajniesh Duggal, Aditya Roy Kapur, Apoorva Lakhia, etc. "I played my first match just a couple of days ago and scored a few runs, took a few catches, so I am happy," Samir says, "When we meet on the field we don't talk about work at all and it is a competitive game so all the concentration is only on performing well."

Not just cricket, Samir has also joined Abhishek Bachchan's All Star Football Club where he plays with Ranbir Kapoor, Dino Morea and Aditya Roy Kapur to name a few. "Again, we mostly meet up on Sundays to play. Most of the times I have to choose between going for cricket or football and that becomes such a tough decision because I love playing both. Also, it is humanly impossible to play both on the same day. It is just exhausting." On the sports front, Samir is still very emotional about Sachin Tendulkar's retirement. "The last few days I was only glued to the test match and Sachin retiring was a very emotional moment. The entire day was spent in discussing all his great moments with friends and family," he says.

Talking about his television projects, Samir recently made a comeback on the show BALH for three odd episodes and says he had a great time working with Balaji again. "It's a new-age show and not a saas-bahu format so I had said yes when I was approached for it. It was great working with Ekta Kapoor and the others for seven months earlier and that's why there was no reason to say no for doing couple of episodes again. But now my stint is done there," says Samir. 

He doesn't rue the fact that his role in the popular show is over. "That's how I prefer it, in fact. I like doing good projects that are not too long-drawn so that I can explore a new and exciting opportunity every now and then. I don't like repetitive and monotonous work." That is perhaps the reason why Samir also doesn't follow Indian soaps himself. He prefers international shows like Game of Thrones, which is one of his favorites, or Master Chef Australia.

Samir has received many offers on television in soaps and for hosting reality shows, but nothing has been exciting enough for him to take up. However, he promises that if all goes as planned, the audience will see him again as the host of two big reality shows. "I'm still in talks but I can tell you that both are very big shows. This is all I can reveal right now," he says. The actor also has a film Island City to look forward to, for which he starts shooting end of December. "It's a NFDC film being directed by Ruchika Oberoi and is a collection of three stories. Vinay Pathak has one story, I have one and the third actor has not been finalized yet. It's new-age cinema with a lot of subtleties. I play a soap opera actor in the film so it is a very real to reel life role for me."

Dhaval Roy