Celebrity Cricket League
Celebrity Cricket League season 2 is back again! It kicks off on today on 4th June 2011. It feature four teams: Mumbai Heroes – Salman Khan (captain), Telugu Warriors: – Venkatesh (captain), Chennai Rhinos: Suriya (captain) and Karnataka Bulldozers: Sudeep (captain). The CCL is poised to be an annual feature with new teams being added to the list. Already there is pressure to include teams from the Marathi, Bhojpuri, Punjabi and Malayalam film industries. Also, efforts are in too bring Film industries from Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Southern Super Stars, led by Telugu mega star Venkatesh and his deputy, Kannada star Sudeep, won the curtain raiser match of the Celebrity Cricket League T20 tournament against Mumbai Heroes (owned by Bollywood superstar Salman Khan) on 6th March 2011. Hindi film celebrities and leading actors of Telugu, Kannada, and Tamil film industries attended the star-studded match. Adarsh won the `Man of the Match` award for his all-round performance.
South stars like Venkatesh, Vishnu, Tarun, Siddharth, Srikanth, Aadarsh Balakrishnan and others have been sweating it out, braving the heat and humidity, fine tuning their batting, bowling and fielding skills. There are no spot lights, no makeup men and errand boys here. Leaving their glamorous self aside, the actors have been training hard.
Vishnu Induri, the founder and co-owner, CCL stated that when the idea of a celebrity league was mooted a year ago, not many could envision what was in store. We’ve been conducting celebrity cricket matches for Movie Artistes Association for the last seven years. During the live telecast of the June 2010 celebrity match, we observed the high television ratings in the interiors of the state, which was nearly double that of any international match.
Commentary in English, Hindi and regional languages, involvement of professional umpires, use of LED screens for scoreboard, third umpire results, entertainment interludes, actresses cheering the teams and glitzy after parties. Shriya and Priyamani are likely to the brand ambassadors of the league while Tapsee will be cheering the Telugu Warriors. After IPL, Celebrity Cricket League is here. Cine personalities from the Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi film worlds will play each other in T20 matches. CCL will be kicked off in Bengaluru today, and the finale will be held in Hyderabad. There are four teams, six league matches and one explosive finale.
Schedule At A Glance
June 4: Telugu Tigers vs. South Superstars XI (1 PM, Bengaluru) and Karnataka Bulldozers vs. Mumbai Heroes (5 PM, Bengaluru)
June 5: Karnataka Bulldozers vs. The South Superstars XI (1 PM, Chennai) and Telugu Tigers vs. Mumbai Heroes (5 PM, Chennai)
June 11: The South Superstars XI vs. Mumbai Heroes (1 PM, Visakhapatnam) and Karnataka Bulldozers vs. Telugu Tigers (5 PM, Visakhapatnam)
June 12: Final Match (Hyderabad)
After ICC Cricket World Cup 2011 and IPL 2011, there will still more cricket this year! The first edition of Celebrity Cricket League (CCL), to be played in the T20 format by celebrities from Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Hindi film industries, will commence on June 4 at Chinnaswamy Stadium in Bengaluru. The CCL will have four teams playing six league matches and the finals will be held in Hyderabad on June 12.
Tags: CCL, Celebrity Cricket League, Chennai Rhinos, Cricket, Karnataka Bulldozers, Mumbai Heroes, Telugu Warriors
