800 Trailer Launch Event

By: Priyal Joshi

In lieu of the film’s trailer launch, Sachin Tendulkar joined Mutthiah Muralitharan at the ceremony for the launch of his Tamil biography, 800. A huge trailer launch ceremony for the Tamil movie 800 was recently held in Mumbai by the film’s producers. Cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar graced the event as the chief guest. 800 is based on Sri Lankan bowler Mutthiah Muralitharan’s stellar career.

“I am very proud because they came (Sachin Tendulkar and Sanath Jayasuriya) and launched it for me. And also I feel that this project has been going on for last 5 years and now it has come to real. Hopefully people enjoy this movie,” said Muralitharan. The great Sri Lankan spinner will be played by Madhurr Mittal, who won an Oscar for his performance in Slumdog Millionaire. The film, written and directed by MS Sripathy, will be released in 3 languages Telugu, Tamil, and Hindi. This movie showcases the search of self and identity, which he creates through cricket. He had a turbulent childhood and this is his untold story of stellar success he has achieved throughout his career.

The film’s focus on Muttiah Muralitharan’s untold story was made clear in the teaser. It opens with flashbacks of incidents that happened in Sri Lanka in the 1970s when Tamil minorities were targeted, highlighting the struggles the community faced at the time. We also get to see a young man wearing a white cricket jersey kneeling down before armed army personnel and a voiceover was heard saying “For someone who hails from a group of migrant labourers, getting recognised as a citizen itself is very tough.” And ends by calling himself proudly a “cricketer”. Muralitharan, a member of the ICC Cricket Hall of Fame, is regarded as one of the best bowlers in the history of the game and is the only bowler to have 800 Test wickets and 530 ODI wickets. He averages more than six wickets each Test match and is the leading wicket-taker in both the Test and ODI formats.

The biopic is set to release on October 6.