Mandira Recalls Her ‘Miserable’ Experience Of Hosting Cricket World Cup, Says Would Cry Every Day'

Mandira Bedi in a recent interview recalled a “miserable” experience of hosting a cricket world cup in 2003. She spoke about dealing with sexism on an everyday basis from cricket experts. However, after a week of sobbing over the fact, she made a massive change.

It was not easy, because they had never had a woman: Mandira Bedi

In an interview with Humans Of Bombay, Mandira shared that it was “not easy” as the cricket experts sitting on the panel were not used to having a woman on the panel. “So, the legends sitting on the left and the right, they weren’t particularly excited about having a woman on the panel,” she continued.

Mandira admitted to asking irrelevant, silly and stupid questions, but clarified that she was briefed to ask questions that came to her mind. So, when she would ask those questions, the cricket experts would just stare at her face and look back at the camera about whatever they wanted to without acknowledging what she had asked. She recalled that at the end of every show she would put her head down and cry, and while the people sitting on her left and right would just leave. “I was just miserable and nobody said anything to me for the first one week. I was stuttering and stumbling and I was nervous, and I was not getting any support from anywhere. I had a co-host. His questions were acknowledged,” she added.

How did Mandira Bedi overcome the situation?

The actress added that after the first week, the channel called her for an intervention. She was worried that the channel would fire her but it turned the other way around. They were impressed by her and instilled their faith in her. She was told to “bring some fun into that boring panel” and this motivated her. “From that one week of hell” things changed and she asserted the experts to answer her questions.