Dubai: Indian origin prison guard, Sashi Cheliah, makes Master Chef Australia history by winning the season with the show’s highest score ever.
In the final round of Season 10, Cheliah scored 93 points on 100, and beat his competitor, Ben Borsht, by 16 points. He took home the 2018 title and also won a cash-prize of 2,50,000 Australian dollars.
Being born in Singapore and after being a police officer for 12 years, the 39-year-old shifted to Adelaide, Australia, where he has been working as a guard at a women’s prison. However, his lineage links him back to Madurai, India.
According to reports, he is also one of the only contestants to have received the infamous ‘immunity pin’, twice in the season.
In the finale episode, Cheliah went against Borsht for a two-part cook-off. After being given their scores in the second and final round, Cheliah was hugged and congratulated by his family and children, even before celebrity chef, Gary Mehigan could announce him as this year’s winner.
According to a report, Cheliah told Australian media company, Fairfax Media: “I’m still looking at options... but I’m going to be trying a lot of things to see what suits me… I just made sure there was enough flavour in my food to wow the judges. That’s all I did and that’s the reason for the score being [so high].”
He also added that he had a good time getting to know his fellow Master Chef contestants.
Cheliah received praise form people online too. Many fans thought he was a “worthy” winner.
He used his official twitter handle @sashi_cheliah and said: “My motivation, my strength and my support, love my family! #MasterChefAU” and shared pictures from the finale. His tweet was liked more than 2,000 times and was retweeted 380 times.
My motivation, my strength and my support, love my family!!!! #MasterChefAU pic.twitter.com/lgUBaJBnnV
— sashi_cheliah (@sashi_cheliah) July 31, 2018
@CouchNish tweeted: “Well done Sashi! #MasterChefAU. Amazing to have an Indian Singaporean winning Australia’s Masterchef competition. He’s a wonderful human being and a credit to our country.”
Twitter user @gwongsg shared an article about Cheliah and said: “This is awesome. Congrats! #MasterChefAU”
Writer @Colvik tweeted: “Sashi - you are Australia’s MasterChef champion for 2018. Highest score ever in a MasterChef Australia finale.” He also discussed how MasterChef Australia remained “a beacon”, in a world where people are divided by “race and ethnicity”.
According to reports Cheliah wants to open a restaurant where he can serve Indian and South-East Asian cuisine.
