Karan Wahi on his love for cricket: I’ve made lifelong friends through the game

Karan Wahi, who completes two decades as an actor this year, grew up dreaming about playing cricket for India. But, at 16, an injury forced him to give up on the dream. In a special shoot with HT City during the IPL season, Wahi tells us why he had to give up on his passion. “I had a major injury on my ankle, and at that time, I didn’t have anyone to push me to keep trying,” says Wahi, who started his acting career with the TV show Remix.
The 37-year-old, who grew up in Delhi, remembers being spotted by batter Shikhar Dhawan’s coach and rubbing shoulders with two former India openers. “Ek baar, Gauti bhaiya (Gautam Gambhir) ne 7 chhakke maare thhe mere ek over mein. Even Virender Sehwag used to come for practice to the ground next to my house. I would bowl to him while he trained there,” Wahi recalls, admitting that cricket helped him make lifelong friends: “It helped me build my rough and tough exterior as I met people from different stratas and backgrounds who comes together for their common love for cricket.”
No wonder then that the actor wishes he’d had one chance to play for Delhi. “When the IPL came around, I even once thought of giving up acting and returning to cricket!” confesses Wahi, who is an ardent Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) fan.
The cricket enthusiast reflects on the exclusion of batter Rinku Singh from the playing 11 at the upcoming T20 World Cup in the Unites States. “It’s not just about how many runs you score. It’s also about your strike rate, your average and the position you play at. The situation is that someone will miss out. It’s like choosing from the best. I feel his time will come,” he says.
Wahi also reacts to the trolling Mumbai Indians captain Hardik Pandya has been facing. He says, “If I was him, firstly I would never come back to Mumbai (from Gujarat Titans). You took a new team straight to the final last year on your own merit. On top of that, you are from Gujarat. I think there was no reason to make him the MI captain this year, they could have done it next year. And now that they aren’t winning, the trolling has become more. So, I do feel bad for him too.”
With RCB almost out of contention in IPL 2024, Wahi is looking forward to June 9, when India squares off against Pakistan in the upcoming World T20 to be held in New York City, USA. It’s his birthday after all. “My visa and air ticket are sorted, but my match ticket isn’t. Yet, I want to give my parents that experience of watching an India-Pakistan match,” he wraps up.