Acting is much tougher

In a show of bonhomie in stark contrast with the bitter rivalry of the recent series Down Under, Indian and Australian cricketers on Friday came together on the field at Sawai Man Singh Stadium here for the shoot of a Bollywood big budget film.

Aussie paceman Brett Lee and his team mates Simon Katich, Stuart Clark and Brad Hogg who are in the country for the Indian Premier League matches, tried their hand at acting along with debutant Harman Baweja and Amrita Rao in 'Victory' - a film on the game.

On the Indian side were R P Singh, Praveen Kumar, Munaf Patel, Yusuf Patel and Pankaj Singh.

R P Singh and Praveen Kumar said "acting is tougher than playing for cricket before spectators".

Lee said the going was fine and he had picked up a smattering of Hindi, given the number of times he has visited the country and his duet with renowned playback singer Asha Bhosale.

In perhaps the first such film since Aamir Khan-starrer 'Lagaan', the movie produced by Manmohan Shetty and directed by Ajit Pal Mangat, is about a boy from the sandy desert hamlet in Jaisalmer who manages to raise a cricket team to take on the Australians in a 50-over match and bring glory to the nation