But as season 3 of the pompously christened Celebrity Cricket League (CCL) draws to a close on Sunday evening with Telugu Warriors playing Karnataka Bulldozers in the finals in Bangalore, movie stars are unsure whether to pop the champagne or not. Having copied the Indian Premier League‘s formula of creating a cocktail of cricket and entertainment, many in the CCL wonder if it has only been a poor version of the IPL, even after three years.
On the face of it, the CCL seems like a success story. It has moved from four teams in 2011 to eight teams now and has succeeded in its efforts to be a pan-India tournament of movie stars playing cricket. To give them credit, the teams – Chennai Rhinos (winner in the first two editions), Telugu Warriors, Karnataka Bulldozers, Mumbai Heroes, Kerala Strikers, Bengal Tigers, Veer Marathi and Bhojpuri Dabanggs – take their cricket quite seriously. Many of the teams have former cricketers as mentors or coaches, like G R Vishwanath for Karnataka Bulldozers and get bowlers from first division league in their cities to bowl to their batsmen, to ensure quality net practise.
The quality of cricket is also not too bad. Many matches have seen some clean hitting and some of the fielders have taken blinders, helped by the level of fitness that stars or even struggling actors maintain to make themselves count in the highly competitive film business.
Big names have bought the teams. Like Boney and Sridevi Kapoor who own Bengal Tigers and Sohail Khan who bought Mumbai Heroes. Malayalam superstar Mohanlal and director Priyadarshan own the Kerala team while industrialist Ashok Kheny owns Karnataka Bulldozers. Salman Khan makes it a point to attend many CCL matches and sponsors have been dazzled enough to be associated with the idea.
At a personal level, many of the actors have a common story to share. How they abandoned their passion to play cricket for a career in films and how CCL has enabled them to do both. So they ensure they take time out for practice and travel and bonding with other team members. Of course, it helps that they are also adequately compensated for their efforts.
Over a period of one month, the matches in Season 3 have also been played in different cities – from Siliguri, Hyderabad and Ranchi to Dubai, Pune and Kochi, to reach out to the doting fans. If CCL catches up among the television-viewing audience, it will also enable many of the regional movie stars gain a more national profile.
The flip side however, has been the question mark over the glam quotient in the teams, Barring a couple of big names, who are invariably the team’s captain and vice-captain, most teams invariably consist of unknown faces who are in the team more for their cricketing talent than their standing as actors. One of the exceptions is Mumbai Heroes that has a rule that at least five players should have acted in ten films or more. But look at the playing elevens of many other sides and you would wonder if star power is indeed wielding the willow.
Another concern is the ego battles within the film industry. The presence of a superstar-captain in any team keeps his rivals on 70mm away from padding up for the industry team. Three, every star actor has injury worries at the back of his mind and if he has crores riding on him, taking an unnecessary risk for the sake of a single would seem stupid.
While team owners who spend anywhere between 3 to 4 crore rupees every year to run a team and also host matches in their backyard are able to recover a significant part of it through sponsorships, those who look at the business side of CCL have still not been able to crack what is it that the audience wants. For instance, would people be more happy with a Nagarjuna bowling to a Mammootty or an Aamir Khan facing a Vijay? Would they like actresses taking to the field as well instead of being mere cheerleaders? Or do they just want their state team to win, irrespective of the number of unrecognisable `actors’ who are part of the side.
CCL administrators concede that unlike IPL, the spectators at their matches are mostly the complimentary passes type. And that it is unlikely that they are there to watch serious cricket. A school of thought therefore is to rope in bigger names from the next edition even if the quality of cricket suffers a bit in the bargain.
Over a dozen television channels in different languages have been covering the matches live. But the quality of packaging, graphics and commentary leaves a lot to be desired.
This evening, Karnataka Bulldozers will hope to be third time lucky, having lost in the finals to Chennai Rhinos in both 2011 and 2012. And when they return to their regular life in front of the cameras it wouldn’t be a surprise if a hero after giving a shot, asks his director : “Howzatt?!”
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