Mandira Bedi reveals she got ‘stared down’ by cricketers, felt ‘intimidated’ while hosting matches

Renowned actress and host Mandira Bedi in a recent interview revealed that she was ‘stared down’ by cricketers back when she did pre-match shows at cricket tournaments. In her stellar career, the multitalented Mandira had appeared as an anchor at the ICC World Cup in 2003, and 2007. 

She did, however, face a lot of sexism while her time in the entertainment industry. Recalling how ‘nobody accepted’ a woman talking about cricket, Mandira also revealed that she felt ‘intimidated’ by the cricketers at the time. 

The 49-year-old also opened up on the time when certain cricketers made her feel out of place and didn’t even properly answer the questions that she, as an anchor asked them. 

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In a recent interview with Pinkivilla, Bedi recalled, “I got stared down by a lot of the cricketers like, ‘what’s she even asking, why is she even asking that.’ They answered whatever they wanted to answer nothing connected to my question and that can be very very intimidating but I kind of was assured by the channel, that backed me and chose me from 150-200 women.”

She would further go on to reveal that the people, who were working alongside Mandira, in the panel weren’t too pleased about the fact that a woman was present in the cricketing circuit. 

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“Nobody accepted me to begin with, certainly not the people sitting on the panel. I’m friends with all the ex-cricketers now who I worked with back then as well but they didn’t like that either. They didn’t like that there was a woman wearing a saree, dressed up, talking cricket. Nobody fed me any lines, nobody fed me any questions. I was there to represent the layperson who doesn’t know every technicality of cricket, who does not know every nuance of cricket,” stated the actress born in Kolkata. 

For the unversed, Mandira hosted multiple cricket World Cup games, while also anchoring at the Champions Trophy in 2004 and 2006. That’s not all, the multi-talented actress also hosted the second edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL).