[Pic] Tahir Raj Bhasin portrays Sunil Gavaskar playing straight drive in latest 83' poster

Excitement is growing both in the Indian cricket and film-loving fraternity as the date for the release of 83' – a movie based on Indian cricket team's epic triumph in the 1983 World Cup – is getting near. Ranveer Singh is the lead actor in the movie as he plays the inimitable captain of that team Kapil Dev.

But the film has a large star cast as the entire Indian squad from that tournament gets featured in the movie. The role of the other great legend who played in that team – master batsman Sunil Gavaskar – is played by Tahir Raj Bhasin.

Posters of the movie featuring Ranveer Singh in the role of Kapil Dev had been released earlier. The first one showed the Gully Boy actor with a cricket ball, looking very similar to the original Kapil Dev while the second shows him playing the 'Natraj Shot' that the Haryana Hurricane was famous for.

Now, a new poster has come out featuring not Ranveer but Tahir Raj Bhasin as Sunil Gavaskar. What's more, it shows the original Little Master of India playing the one shot that was his greatest trademark – the straight drive.

The actor seems as technically sound in the still poster as the man he is portraying was while playing the shot – elbows up, head leaning forward to where the ball would have made contact with the bat and the willow following through in a perfect curve that would have guided the ball straight down the ground.

One of the most iconic images from June 25, 1983 when India triumphed in the World Cup final agaisnt West Indies was Sunil Gavaskar and Kapil Dev standing at the famous Lord's balcony holding each other's hands aloft in the air with an Indian flag in the background. This picture becomes all the more symbolic since these two greats were the pillars of Indian cricket in that era.

There were also times when stories of the two legends not getting along with each other surfaced in the media. When Gavaskar was the captain, he once dropped Kapil Dev from the playing XI during a Test series in early 1980s. However, the two men are on very good terms now and Gavaskar has often described his former teammate as the greatest Indian cricketer of all time.

One cannot wait to see how both Kapil and Gavaskar are played by the two actors portraying their characters in the movie. Hopefully, the actors would do full justice to their roles and bring their cinematic avatars alive in a most vivid manner.