Written by: Hurmat Majid
Posted on: March 28, 2022 | 
Producer Mahira Khan with the lead cast of Baarwan Khiladi
Baarwan Khiladi, written by Shahid Dogar and directed by Adnan Sarwar, revolves around the lives of two boys with the same dream: to play for the national cricket team. While Jahangir (Shahveer Jafry) is from an influential family, Akbar (Danyal Zafar) is from a small fictional town called Hajiabad who has learned to play cricket on the streets. They are both pining for a position in Shaheen 11, a team that often wins Pakistan’s largest national premier league, the Lahore Premier League.
The protagonists of the show, Jahangir (Shahveer Jafry) and Akbar (Danyal Zafar)
While Akbar goes through trials after a batting spot opens up in the team, Jahangir gets his father (Usman Pirzada) to make a phone call to the team’s coach Ikhlaq (Sarmad Khoosat) for his inclusion in the squad. Just the way things work in real life, Jahangir is given the spot on the team at the last moment, and Akbar is left to perform the 12th man’s duties as the water-boy.
Sarmad Khoosat as the coach of Shaheen 11
Although Jahangir was included in the team because of his father’s influence, he retains his place through solid performance in the league’s matches. The small-town boy gets his chance in one of the matches, when a teammate of his has to miss a game due to an emergency. But as soon as the regular player returns, Akbar loses the spot again, and that’s when he meets Kamran Asif (Fawad Khan), a former star player who lost his glory because of his irresponsible behavior. Asif coaches Akbar on how to keep his anger in check, and how to let go of in-team rivalry to form a stronger unit as cricket is a team sport. Heeding Asif’s advice, Akbar learns to overlook Jahangir’s snide remarks and borderline abusive behavior, but how long will he be able to keep his emotions in check is still to be answered.
Fawad Khan as Kamran Asif in Baarwan Khiladi
The two girls on the show, Kinza Malik and Hina Ashfaque, have done a decent job when it comes to being the love interests of the two boys, but their roles lack depth and seem to be quite linear. Kinza Malik and Zafar’s chemistry is more palpable on-screen than Jaffri and Hina Ashfaque, but we have barely seen the latter on screen together.
Saba Hameed does an adequate job as Akbar’s single mom, while it's refreshing to see Mohsin Gillani back on-screen, even if it's for the cookie-cutter role of a father. Usman Peerzada fits perfectly in the role of Jahangir’s father, and Ali Tahir is a good fit for his role as the owner of the Shaheen 11.
While watching Fawad Khan on screen is supposed to be a treat for the audience, it is sad to say that his performance as a lost cricketing hero is not up to the mark. One wants to like him in the role, but his presence on screen leaves no impact on the audience. The role could have been better performed by any other leading actor from the industry.
Danyal Zafar as the small-town cricketer Akbar
To come to Shahveer and Danyal’s performances, while Shahveer fits his role as a spoilt rich brat well, his persona isn’t far from the way he is in real life, so we don’t quite know how much credit we should give him on his acting skills. Danyal looks too refined for a boy coming from a small town. He dresses nicely, walks a certain way and even though he has a heavy Punjabi accent, his refined background shines through quite evidently. His performance makes us wish he had done more to act like a small-town cricketer. The other three new actors in the cricket squad are also quite unremarkable, and one forgets them as soon as they leave the screen.
To be frank, we watched most of the episodes on 1.5x speed and missed nothing, the dialogues were still audible, the music sounded better and the screen looked more engaging. So overall, we don’t know if it's the editing or just the way the show has been written, but something needs to be done to ramp up the pace a little bit. The episodes are all between 35 to 45 minutes long, and we feel that a crisper 20-minute episode may keep the audience engaged.
The cast and crew of Baarwan Khiladi
The music on the show is also lacking, the background track was too slow at normal speed and sounded better at 1.5x. The romantic number performed by Heer at Jahangir’s party was also quite unexciting and unremarkable. One thing that did stand out on the show were the graphics that were done for the Lahore Premier League, so kudos to whoever was responsible for those. The Shaheen 11 kit was also designed quite well.
The show is produced by Mahira Khan and Nina Kashif’s Soul Fry Productions. Baarwan Khiladi has been in the works for quite a while. We first heard about it in mid-2021 when Mahira Khan first launched her production house, the show’s release was then stalled by a few months and it finally started streaming on the 5th of March. Two episodes come out each weekend, and it is said that the show will have about 20 episodes.
The cast of Baarwan Khiladi. (L to R) Khaqan Shahnawaz, Meer Yusuf, Shahveer Jafry, Zarrar Khan and Danyal Zafar
We are all for supporting local streaming platforms, and at as low as Rs100/month, the Tapmad subscription is practically a steal. That said, the service certainly needs to run more smoothly, as streaming paused quite a few times to buffer in each episode. They also need to look into adding basic options like skipping the intro, and continuing where one left off. Manually opening the next episode each time, is also a hassle that viewers would be happy to avoid. We hope to see these features added in the next app update. We also hope that the service will remain ad-free as that was the biggest highlight of watching the show on Tapmad.
In all honesty, the verdict’s still out on Baarwan Khiladi as we wait for more to happen,
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