Nana Patekar may have been best known for the intensity he brought to the screen, but away from the arc lights, that same intensity found an outlet in sport. Cricket was his abiding passion; shooting, for a brief period, became something more than a pastime.
For Anjali Bhagwat, the former World No. 1 and India’s first Olympic shooting finalist in 2000, Patekar’s sporting association was particularly personal. It began with a joke at the National Games in Pune in 1995.
The shooting events were held at a range in Worli, Mumbai, where Patekar had arrived as the chief guest for the prize distribution. Bhagwat had won all the gold medals on offer. As he handed them over, Patekar quipped: “Should I send over a truck for you to take all these gold medals home?”
The joke was followed by an act of generosity that Bhagwat has remembered for three decades.
After the ceremony, Patekar approached her mentor, Bheeshmaraj Bam, and asked: “We have such a talented bunch of shooters. How can I be of any help?”
He sponsored Bhagwat’s first professional shooting kit.
“He was also an excellent shooter. His focus and aggression as a shooter stood out,” Bhagwat recalled. “There are calm and quiet shooters and there are aggressive ones, but I always saw him as a focussed and aggressive shooter.”
Patekar’s own tryst with competitive shooting came when he was already in his 50s. Despite the demands of his acting career leaving him little time to practise, his natural ability and technical understanding were evident. He won a silver at the National Big Bore Shooting Championship in 2004 and added a bronze in 2007.
“He would get very less time to practise because of his busy schedule, but he was a natural. His technical knowledge was extremely impressive,” Bhagwat said.
Cricket, however, remained the sport closest to Patekar’s heart. Kiran More, India’s wicketkeeper during the 1980s and 1990s, remembers the actor’s calls during the 1989 tour of Pakistan, when a telephone communication from home was a prized commodity.
“We used to get a lot of calls from India back then, from celebrities and all. Nana Patekar used to regularly make those trunk calls,” More recalled. “At times he even tightened Sachin (Tendulkar) up to do well. He was so passionate that some of us would be cagey whenever he called. A genuine cricket fan indeed!”
Patekar followed not only India’s international matches but Mumbai’s domestic cricket scores, too. His friendships with several of the city’s cricketing stars from the 1980s and 1990s gave him an insider’s connection with the game. He was a regular at the annual party that Sunil Gavaskar organises for his close friends.
Whether standing behind a shooter at a range, offering a helping hand to a young talent or following Mumbai’s score from afar, Patekar did not appear content merely to watch sport. He wanted to feel it. Much like the characters he inhabited on stage and on screen, he did so with unmistakable intensity.
Published on Oct 08, 2026
