In the first half of Shabaash Mithu, the low-profile coach Sampath Kumar tells a young Mithali Raj, after an indifferent performance in a practice session, that she should be grateful that there are no big social hurdles in her path and compares her background with that of her bosom friend Noorie who played for seven years without telling her parents. Later in the film, during a camp, off-spinner Neelu (inspired by Neetu David) almost graphically tells us how she skinned cattle with her father in a tannery in Kanpur.
No offence to the staggering records and stature of Mithali Raj in international cricket, but in a cinema hall, one would like to know more about the lives of Noorie and Neelu. After showing glimpses of a detour, director Srijit Mukherji sticks to doing a heavy-handed, formulaic sports biopic where the makers see the subject with a halo and paint others in muted shades. The film could have been a celebration of women’s cricket but as one of the songs in the film suggests, it focuses mostly on one butterfly. The rest have to wait for another producer to invest in their stories.
