When heroes collide: Brett Lee, Adam Gilchrist feast with Indian PM Narendra Modi

Wednesday, 10 September 2014 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

NDTV/PTI: Former cricketers Brett Lee and Adam Gilchrist on Friday exchanged pleasantries with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a dinner banquet hosted for Australian PM Tony Abbott. The former cricketers were included in the Australian delegation as part of Abbott’s official tour of India. Lee’s love for India is well known and the former Australian speed ace enjoys a huge fan base in the country. He will also soon star in an Indo-Australian movie project titled ‘UnIndian’, a romantic comedy. In the film, Lee will be seen romancing actress Tannishtha Chatterjee. The sportsman says he is comfortable doing a romantic film as it suits his real life personality.

At the dinner banquet with Modi, Lee looked extremely happy and later shared a picture on social networking site Twitter where the two were seen shaking hands while posing for the camera. “What an absolute privilege to have dinner with @narendramodi last night. An amazing experience,” Lee, who is popularly known as Binga by cricket fans around the world, wrote on his Twitter page. When it comes to cricket, there is no better place to be than India. And Gilchrist, who has played in numerous editions of the Indian Premier League (IPL) during and after his Australia career ended, is in love with the country’s cricket madness. In his autobiography titled True Colours, Gilchrist even called India the most valuable place he had ever visited. “Shukriya @narendramodi for a wonderful dinner, an absolute pleasure to meet you @BrettLee_58 @TonyAbbottMHR,” tweeted a happy-looking Gilchrist. Earlier during their trip, the duo met Indian cricket icon Sachin Tendulkar at Mumbai’s Cricket Club of India along with PM Abbott. Even the Aussie PM was impressed by the respect India show to their cricketers and said it was similar to how Australians love their own stars. “As I discovered yesterday, Australian cricketers are at least as revered in this country as at home and this will only increase now that Brett Lee is to become the latest Bollywood star in a new Indian-Australian film co-production,” Abbott said. The two countries also signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in the field of sports on Friday. The initiative will promote exchange of programs, experience, skills, techniques and knowledge in sports. It will also facilitate exchange of sports personnel, coaches, officials, training and technologies.