Mandira Bedi is known for her work in television and films. She is also a host and entered the world of anchoring in the cricket World Cup in 2003. In an interview with Humans of Bombay, the actress reveals about her experience when all eyes were on her and what she dealt with the cricket gurus who ignored her, she struggled every day for a week, but then she experienced a significant transformation.
According to her, it was not easy because they had never had a woman sitting on the panel. Mandira expressed, "So, the legends sitting on the left and the right, they weren’t particularly excited about having a woman on the panel. I would ask a question, some of my questions were really silly, irrelevant, and stupid, but my brief was, ‘You ask the questions that come to your mind. Whatever you have in your mind, it’s not off the table, go ahead and ask’. So, if I have those questions in my mind, then somebody at home has similar questions in their mind. I am not supposed to represent the purist, I am supposed to represent the common person.”
Mandira stated that when she answered her questions, the cricket experts would simply gaze at her face, turn back at the camera, and begin chatting about anything they wanted without recognizing what she had asked.
“I would put my head down and I would cry, and people sitting on my left and right would say, ‘I will just go and get some coffee. Would you like some coffee?’ and just leave. I was just miserable and nobody said anything to me for the first week. I was stuttering and stumbling and I was nervous, and I was not getting any support from anywhere. I had a co-host. His questions were acknowledged," she said.
After the first week, she was called by the channel for intervention, and she thought that she might be dismissed, but they had trust in her. She was urged to add some humour to that monotonous panel, which transformed her perspective.
She also reminisced about the time when Indian cricketer and a former captain Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi visited their studio and stated, “You are the Mandira Bedi everyone is talking about?”
Mandira is a renowned figure in the sports media industry. She has covered numerous cricket tournaments and has been associated with IPL and ICC Cricket World Cup.
She hosted the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2003 and 2007, and Champions Trophy in 2004 and 2006, and IPL Season 2 & 3.
