Funnyman Asif Mandvi has joined Jon Hamm, Alan Arkin and Life Of Pi star Suraj Sharma in new baseball movie Million Dollar Arm.

Mandvi and Shah will play a pair of real-life Indian cricket fans who won the chance to pitch for the Pittsburgh Pirates after taking part in a talent contest.

Craig Gillespie will direct the drama, which starts shooting in India next week (beg06May13).

Appearing on U.S. news programme The Daily Show, on which Mandvi is a regular contributor, Hamm says, "It's a true story. One of the guys is still in the Major Leagues at the Triple A level.

"They found these two kids, 16 and 17 years old, took them out of India, they didn't speak any English, they'd never played baseball, but they had the raw tools to bring it."