Mandira Bedi recalled how she was harshly criticized when she started presenting cricket on television. She started anchoring for cricket with the 2003 World Cup.
After a successful stint in acting, Mandira Bedi moved to anchoring for cricket in the early 2000s. In a latest interview, the popular actor and television presenter recalled how she got the opportunity to emcee for cricket. She mentioned how she was harshly criticized for her anchoring skills and how she dealt with the criticism.
In a conversation with Curly Tales, Mandira Bedi mentioned how she landed the opportunity to emcee for cricket. She mentioned that she travelled to Sri Lanka to watch the 2002 Champions Trophy match between India and England. She revealed that back then Sony was flying down celebrities to watch the match, but she went there out of her pocket because she loved the sport.
Bedi mentioned that when Sony wanted a woman anchor for the 2003 World Cup, they reached out to her because they knew that she enjoyed cricket. She revealed that she had to undergo three rounds of audition along with thousands of women. She said, “So when they wanted a female anchor for the 2003 World Cup, they just called me randomly. As soon as I reached there, I had a bunch of people shooting cricket questions at me, I was like, ‘What’s going on?’ They asked me, ‘Would you be interested in hosting the cricket World Cup? I was like, ‘Would I be interested? Yes!’ But it wasn’t as easy as that. There were three auditions, and over a thousand other women auditioned for this gig.”
In the same conversation, Bedi recalled that she became so popular as a sports anchor that she stopped getting acting offers. However, she also mentioned that anchoring was not easy, and she used to get harshly criticized. But she also revealed that Sony did not let her read what people were saying about her. The presenter continued, “We didn’t have social media, where you could see people’s comments at that time. We did have internet, but not like now. Sony kept me away from all this. They said, ‘You are not allowed to know what people are saying’. They shut all that out for me.”
Bedi started her career with the Doordarshan serial ‘Shanti’ in 1994.