Anushka Sharma reacts to criticism for posing with Indian cricketers in the UK

If you are a movie star and your husband is captain of the Indian cricket team, you are bound to be in the limelight constantly.

Anushka Sharma is used to it, as she is to the needless and relentless trolling that she has been subjected to every time she has turned up at the stadium to watch her husband Virat Kohli play.

Recently, Sharma’s posing with the Indian cricketers at a function hosted by the Indian high commission in the United Kingdom was debated a great deal in the sports media while social media trolls slammed the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for allegedly bending the rules for the Indian captain.

What appeared to have riled the trolls more was that Sharma was the only spouse present at the event. All the other India cricketers came without their wives or girlfriends.

When Sharma stepped out on Monday for the trailer launch of her upcoming film Sui Dhaaga, she was asked about the controversy.

“Whatever happened, whoever [BCCI] had to make a clarification, that clarification has been made. This was trolling activity. I don’t react to trolls. I don’t want to give them unnecessary attention,” said Sharma, while underlining that no rules were flouted.

"What happened, it happened within the guidelines [laid down by the BCCI for the players]. What will happen in the future will always happen within the guidelines. Let’s not make a big issue out of it. There is no substance to this topic,” she affirmed.

Sharma will be seen in a very humble role in Sui Dhaaga, where her character, Mamta, plays the doting wife who carries out the household chores and helps her husband Mauji at their small tailoring shop.

It might be recalled that right after her marriage with Kohli in December last year, Sharma took up Sui Dhaaga. A journalist asked Sharma whether, through this film, she had been able to carry out all the duties that one associates a doting, traditional Indian wife with.

“That’s one good thing that happened during this film," she responded. "I have never been domesticated in my life so much as what I had to do here. I started working at the age of 15. Now I’m married, I’m still working. I don’t even get much time to spend with my husband. Through this film, I got to stay in this world, I got to stay in the domestic set-up, to be in the kitchen. So, I got to experience a homely atmosphere. It’s all thanks to [director] Sharat Katariya.”

Sui Dhaaga is set to be released on 28 September.