Filmmaker Abhinay Deo Discusses Doosra, The Influence of Bhushan Kumar, and Prolonged Delays

Filmmaker Abhinay Deo has opened up about the making of his film Doosra, which chronicles key moments from Sourav Ganguly's cricketing career and India's victory in the 2002 NatWest Series final alongside a parallel fictional journey of a young girl named Tara, played by Plabita Borthakur, growing up in a conservative household in Rajasthan.

Deo explained the contributions of Subhash Ghai, Jisshu U Sengupta, and Bhushan Kumar mentioned at the beginning of the film. Subhash Ghai invited the team to Whistling Woods International for the Celebrating Cinema festival, where the trailer was publicly unveiled for the first time in his auditorium. Jisshu U Sengupta is helping put things together for promotions in Kolkata, Sourav Ganguly's home ground, following their collaboration on the web series Brown.

Bhushan Kumar agreed to showcase the trailer on T-Series' YouTube channel despite T-Series having no formal connection to the film. Deo noted that T-Series has over 300 million subscribers on its YouTube channel, making the support significant for the project.

The idea for the dual narrative originated from Rohan Sajdeh, husband of producer Masha Sajdeh, who proposed a documentary on Sourav Ganguly. Advertising professional Agnello Dias later suggested that the protagonist should be a girl unconnected to cricket. This led to the creation of Tara, whose life mirrors struggles with racism and adversity, connecting her journey to Ganguly's milestones leading up to 2002.

Addressing the film's prolonged delay, Deo stated that filming took place in 2018-19 and editing occurred in 2019-20. The COVID-19 pandemic severely impacted the release plans. Additionally, the film was edited in New York by an Israeli editor named Ayelet Gil Efrat. Deo deliberately chose an editor who knew nothing about cricket or Indian culture to maintain a fresh, unbiased perspective. Travel restrictions between Mumbai, Chicago, and New York during the pandemic, coupled with Deo becoming busy with other projects, added to the timeline before PVR INOX Pictures came on board as distributor for the release scheduled for October 23.