Film stars to swap grease paint for sun tan cream, play cricket

Kochi - Starting Saturday, a majority of film stars would apply more sun tan cream and less grease paint as the third edition of the Celebrity Cricket League (CCL) gets underway here.

The CCL’s season three in the T-20 format will be played Feb 9 to March 12 under floodlights.

Dubai is also a venue and the matches will be played in Siliguri, Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai and Ranchi, with the final in Bangalore.

This season two new teams – Marathi and Bhojpuri – have been added to the six that contested the last edition.

This time the eight teams participating are divided into two groups.

Group A: Chennai Rhinos (led by Vijay), Telugu Warriors (Venkatesh), Kerala Strikers (Mohanlal) and Veer Marathi (Riteish Deshmukh).

Group B: Karnataka Bulldozers (Sudeep), Mumbai Heroes (Sunil Shetty), Bengal Tigers (Jeet) and Bhojpuri Dabanggs (Manoj Tiwari).

The opening match between Chennai and Bhojpuri would be held here Saturday at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium, which recently hosted the India Vs England ODI.

The second match would be between the home side and the Mumbai team after the inaugural ceremony, where all captains would participate, besides a cultural show directed by co-owner of the Kerala team and ace film director Priyadarshan.

“We are well prepared. This is a game which could go anyway,” said Mohanlal.

At Saturday’s event, the chief guests are Mammootty and Salman Khan, besides actor-turned-Kerala Minister for Forests and Cinema K.B. Ganesh Kumar.