Rajkummar Rao Is Dada in First Look on Ganguly's Birthday

The makers of Dada – The Sourav Ganguly Story picked the loudest possible frame to introduce their lead, and the loudest possible day to do it. On Ganguly’s birthday, the first look landed with Rajkummar Rao restaging the moment burned into a generation of Indian cricket fans: shirt off, jersey whirling above his head on the Lord’s balcony, after the 2002 NatWest Trophy final against England.

It is a shrewd choice. The bare-chested roar is not just a photograph, it is shorthand for the aggression Ganguly injected into a side that had spent years being pushed around away from home. Building the poster around it tells you exactly what register the film is aiming for before a single scene has been shown.

Rao steps into a role a long way from his usual register of tightly wound everymen, and the makers are leaning on transformation rather than resemblance. The first look sells intensity over mimicry, which is the safer bet for a face as familiar as Ganguly’s.

Vikramaditya Motwane directs, which is the detail that lifts this above the standard sports-biopic template. He made Udaan and Jubilee, and tends to find the private cost behind public triumph, exactly the tension a Ganguly story needs given how much of his career was a fight to be taken seriously as captain. Love Ranjan and Ankur Garg produce under Luv Films, with Gulshan Kumar, Bhushan Kumar, T-Series and DBL presenting.

The film is billed as the story of the man who did not just play the game but changed it, tracing Ganguly’s rise from a talented young batsman to one of India’s most influential captains. Dada – The Sourav Ganguly Story opens in cinemas worldwide on 14 May 2027, timed to a long holiday weekend.