Not lot of players have tried their luck in acting after representing India in blue. We have Sadagopan Ramesh who acted in some South Movies, Ajay Jadeja also acted in a movie, but of all the cricketers who really took Bollywood as their second career was Salil Ankola.
Salil Ankola, the tall handsome fast bowler from the town of Ankola, an uttara kannada district in Karanataka, debuted for India in 1989 for the tour of Pakistan.
In his first match, Ankola took 2 wickets in a drawn match but leaked too many runs. He would have liked to do better in the coming matches of the series but injury ruled him for the rest of the matches and as it turned out, that’s the lone test match Salil Ankola played in his entire career.
He toiled hard in the domestic circuit once again and once again was in the scheme of things in 1993, which made way for his selection in 1996 Wills World Cup.
With not so great figures in bowling and his poor fielding, Ankola was done with his cricket career in 1997 at the age of 28 with 20 ODIS and 1 test presence to his name.
Film and TV career :-
At the age of 28, Ankola decided to switch to bollywood. He acted in 9-10 movies. Kurukshetra along with Sanjay Dutt and Chura Liya hai Tumne with Zayad Khan were some of his known films.
He also acted in Tv serials and also appeared in the first season of Big Boss in 2006.
In 2008, Ankola fought with depression and was enrolled in a rehabilitation centre in Pune. His wife took the kids with her family leaving Ankola isolated.
But Ankola kept on pushing, from 2008-2012, he didn’t have much of work and BCCI organised a benefit t20 match for him in 2010 in Andheri Complex between Sachin Tendulkar XI and Saurav Ganguly XI. Former captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni was also part of the match.
A benefit match is a match or season of activities granted by a sporting body to a loyal sportsman to boost their income before retirement.
Thought BCCI tried their level best, but it was not enough and Salil Ankola marriage resulted in divorce in 2011 and Ankola remarried again in 2011 with Ria Banerjee.
In 2020 he was selected as chief selector of Mumbai Cricke Association and was the national selector from 1 Jan 2023 to 1 Jan 2024 of India, before being replaced as Ajit Agarkar, the main chief selector was also from Mumbai and you can’t have 2 selectors from same zone.
Ankola had quite a filmy life with a cricket career followed by his career in bollywood and adds to that, the ups and down in his personal life.
Though he didn’t have that great success in cricket or bollywood, he is still up and running and at the age of 55, and with 1 year of experience as national selector, things are certainly looking good for Ankola.
Don’t forget to listen to his superhit song with melodious voice of Adnam Sami.
