Presenting Shane Warne, Chris Gayle and Asad Rauf in and as — ‘The Shaukeens’

The movie will be shot on the exotic locales of Australia along with Shane Warne, Chris Gayle, Asad Rauf and Liz Hurley under the production of Vijay Mallya.

Barring a few Ian Botham antics, the cricket fraternity was much sober before the release of ‘Shaukeen’ in the year 1982. The movie, which had three lecherous elderly men running behind a lady, had a profound impact on then 13-year old Shane Warne. Still an aspiring cricketer back then, the teenaged Warne went on to become the ‘playboy’ of world cricket. He aspired to remake his favourite film one day and cast himself in one of the three lead roles, but for a long time, he was alone in his league.

When the movie was released, Chris Gayle was still a toddler, so there was no question of him watching it. On the other hand, Pakistani umpire Asad Rauf had not started umpiring, which meant he was restricted to his country which had no television sets (in fact no electricity too) back then. But in the year 2014, a remake of the original was released with the title ‘The Shaukeens’. The plot of the movie was the same, and this time around, Warne had two potential characters in mind, who could reprise the other two roles in his version of the movie.

So, he created a “McDowell’s No. 1” moment (Remember the famous Bagpiper  tagline ‘Khoob jamega rang, jab mil baithenge teen yaar) by holding a special screening of the movie — which was eventually gate-crashed by a (high) spirited owner of the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) Vijay Mallya — for Gayle and Rauf while the seventh edition of Indian Premier League (IPL) was on.

So impressed were the two that they immediately decided to be a part of Warne’s version. The uninvited guest Mallya, who apparently has deep pockets, too was mighty impressed and decided to produce the flick. There’s the ‘Liz’ connection with this remake as well, as Warne has convinced his once ‘good-friend’ Liz Hurley to play Liza Haydon’s role. The movie, which will be shot on the exotic locales of Australia, will go on floors immediately after IPL this year and will be released soon. Till then, do whatever you want to do!

Please note this is a humour article — work of pure fiction.

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