Salman: lucky mascot for Mumbai Heroes?

Actor Sohail Khan’s team, Mumbai Heroes defended themselves well against opponents Telegu Warriors, a change from the former’s abysmal performance in the last season of Celebrity Cricket League (CCL). Even though the opening match of the new season ended in a draw, the star studded cricketing extravaganza seemed to be a hit with the crowds.

The opening match, held at the Sharjah Cricket Association Stadium in Sharjah on Friday, managed to rope in a large number of spectators who seemed to be entertained by the excitement on the grounds, coupled with the presence of actor Salman Khan at the stadium.

Khan was present from the beginning till the end of the match, looking visibly nervous but cheering on his brother Sohail’s team. “We all feel Salman bhai is indeed our lucky charm. It was really great of him to sit through the entire match to cheer us up, sparing  time from his tight shooting schedule,” said one of the team members.

The opening ceremony started on a musical note with performances by Devi Sri Prasad, famous for composing the song Dhinka Chika from Salman Khan starrer Ready, and singer Atif Aslam. Afterwards, the teams took center stage along with their owners, captains and brand ambassadors. 

By Hindustan Times

Salman Khan’s team in a nail-biting finish at debut match

CCL-II match between Mumbai Heroes and Telugu Warriors end in a draw

What a cracker of a start for Celebrity Cricket League (CCL) season two. The first match played between Mumbai Heroes and Telugu Warriors ended in a draw.

Top celebrities from Bollywood and Tollywood film industries from India displayed some breathtaking cricketing skills.

The opening ceremony started off with performances by singers Devi Sri Prasad and Atif Aslam. Then it was time for all the teams to take the centerstage along with their owners, captains and brand ambassadors.

Telugu Warriors won the toss and decided to bat first. In the very first over fans could witness a resurgent Mumbai Heroes.

Opening bowler bowled an in-swinger which sent one of the opening Telugu batsmen back to the pavilion.
Sharjah Cricket stadium, which is the home ground of the Mumbai Heroes, came alive with fans screaming and loudspeakers billowing Salman's Bollywood numbers.

In season one, Mumbai Heroes were battered on the field. It was a disaster every time they were on field. But Salman 'Dabangg' Khan promised a revived Mumbai Heroes in season two. "We had taken the game too lightly last time but this time we are all prepared. The boys have practised well and hope to do well," said Salman Khan.

Indeed this first match for the team was not as bad as last season. They were off colour on field with dismal fielding performance but the batsman held their nerves. They took their team closer to victory.

"It was an off day in the field today but we hope to improve," said Sohail Khan owner of Mumbai Heroes.
The Mumbai Heroes also lost an early wicket when they came down to bat. But a solid 104 partnership between Varun Badola and Raja Bherwani saw them sailing through.

At the end of 20 overs, Mumbai Heroes needed to make 168 runs but could only manage 167. The game ultimately ended in a tie. The points were shared 1-1 by both teams.  The crowd couldn’t have asked for more.

A nailing biting Salman Khan was also visibly tensed. The crowd was also at the edge of their seats throughout the match.

The second match to be played in Sharjah is between Chennai Rhinos and Mumbai Heroes on 14th January.

EARLIER STORY: Salman Khan on a revenge series in Sharjah after whitewash

The Celebrity Cricket League (CCL) with the promise to be bigger and better kick-starts its season 2 from the Sharjah cricket stadium this Friday.

For the first time the CCL teams will battle it out on an international venue.

The event will see a grand opening ceremony where there will be performances by Atif Aslam and Devi Prasad, followed by a display of cricketing skills between the Mumbai Heroes and the Telugu Warriors. On January 14th the Mumbai Heroes will again take on the Chennai Rhinos at the same venue.

The Mumbai Heroes backed by Salman Khan announced Sharjah Cricket Stadium as their home ground.
After a whitewash season one, Salman Khan promises Mumbai Heroes will not go through the humiliation again. The Mumbai Heroes team line up saw some of the well-known Bollywood stars but they were bulldozed in first season by the other film industries in India.

Speaking to Emirates 24|7 Salman Khan said, "We had a bad season last time but our boys are better prepared this time and we hope to do well".

Team owner Sohail Khan said, "The boys have been practicing well, we have a good team, a good coach and hope to perform better this time".

With six teams, 18 matches and six different venues Celebrity Cricket League comes to the UAE.
The League designed after the IPL (Indian Premier League) brings together six film industries of India on one stage to showcase their cricket prowess.

The six teams represent the six different regional film industries in India. Mumbai Heroes owned by Sohail Khan and captained by Suniel Shetty, Chennai Rhinos lead by South superstar Surya, Karnataka Bulldozers by Kiccha Sudeep and skipper Venkates leads Telugu Warriors.

Season 2 will introduce two new teams- Kerala Strikers and Bengal Tigers owned by Boney Kapoor. With the inclusion of two more teams there’s a slight change in the format as well. There will be fifteen league matches, two semifinals and one final matches played. The other venues include Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Kochi.

CCL features over 100 stars from India's diverse film industry, including the Star Power of Bollywood with Salman Khan, Telugu Star Venkatesh, Malayalam Superstar Mohanlal, Tamil Star Surya, Kannada Hero Sudeep and Bengali star Indreneil are going to mix glamour with cricketing instincts to fight for the Celebrity Cricket League Champions Trophy.

Suniel Shetty leads the Mumbai Heroes and Ritesh Deshmukh acts as the Vice Captain. The Mumbai Heroes’ team leads all the way when it comes to the glam brigade too; seen cheering the team will be the brand ambassador Sonakshi Sinha, Genelia Dsouza and Kangana Ranaut.

The Telugu Warriors is led by Venkatesh as the Captain and Vishnu Manchu as the Vice Captain and has Charmee and Richa as its brand ambassadors.

The Chennai Rhinos is led by captain Abbas and has stars like Surya and cheering them will be Sameera Reddy and Amla Paul.

Salman Khan, Yuvraj Singh & other celebrities buying on polo, motorsports & cricket teams

NEW DELHI: Call it the IPL effect. Buying sports teams seems the new hep thing in the world of celebrities. If cricketer Yuvraj Singh is buying a motorsport team, Telugu film star Chiranjeevi's son Ramcharan Tej has bought a polo team, and Hindi superstar Salman Khan, Tamil star Suriya and Malayalam actor Mohanlal are all part of a new celebrity cricket league.

The success of the Indian Premier League, where actors Shah Rukh Khan, Shilpa Shetty and Preity Zinta are among the team owners, may be the obvious trigger, but the stars are clearly looking beyond top-level cricket, partly because of heavy investment and lack of opportunities, and partly because of their interest in other sports.

"It's not only very expensive to buy an IPL team, but opportunities are also restricted," says Indranil Das, COO of sports and entertainment marketing firm Kwan Entertainment & Marketing, which manages endorsement deals for actor Ranbir Kapoor, Anushka Sharma and Rana Daggubatti. "There are a lot of proposals on the table and celebrities seem to be keen too - because sport has an emotional connect and gives the owners added visibility as well," he says.

Yuvraj Eyes 1 Super Series Team

Yuvraj Singh and a host of other celebrities, including British business magnate Richard Branson and film star Hrithik Roshan, are expected to be associated with i1 Super Series, a franchisee-based car-racing event being endorsed by master batsman Sachin Tendulkar and promoted by Machdar Motorsports.

Chiranjeevi's son Ramcharan Tej has acquired a Hyderabad-based nationallevel polo team a fortnight ago for an estimated 3-4 crore. He says there is a big opportunity to make Hyderabad the home ground for Royal Polo Games, and reviving the sport. "People here are aware of the big brands associated with polo and they have huge spending power - this is the new place for luxury brands to showcase themselves," Tej says. He clearly expects good returns on his investment. His association has already helped the team bring in sponsors such as the Apollo Group, Tej says.

RACING CLUBS

Machdar Motorsports CEO Darshan M has confirmed that Yuvraj Singh is in talks to buy a franchisee team of i1 Super Series. "Yuvraj is interested in the league but nothing has been finalised yet," he says. Partly modelled on IPL, the soon-to-belaunched motor sports league will have nine teams, each representing a city, and each team will have two cars in the race, driven by an Indian and a foreigner.

But unlike IPL, the motor sport teams would not be auctioned. The nine franchises will be sold, by invitation, at a base price of $5 million. 

Teams will also have to pay an annual fee of $1 million from the second year. IPL is a lot costlier. Shah Rukh had bought the Kolkata team for $75.09 million, while Subrata Roy's Sahara Group coughed up $370 million for Pune Warriors. The race will tour across seven Asian cities including Delhi, Chennai, Dubai, Kuala Lumpur and Pattaya. The total prize money is $2 million. A person familiar with the negotiations says the deal with Yuvraj is expected to be formalised in two weeks. An email sent to the cricketer's manager remained unanswered till the time of going to print.

The person also says British business magnate and Virgin Group promoter Richard Branson too is in talks to buy the Bangalore team in this league. Film stars Hrithik Roshan, Fardeen Khan and Sanjay Khan, besides corporates, like the Hero Group and the Burmans of the Dabur Group, too have held talks with the league owners. Darshan would not confirm this. "We are in talks with several sports and film stars, and corporate houses, but we can't reveal the names at this point," he says. The team owners and the broadcast partner will be announced over the next few weeks as the first race is scheduled for December, Darshan says.

FIGHT AGAINST PIRACY

The returns need not be direct. The film fraternity across the country - Bollywood, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bangla and Malayalam - have come together to form the Celebrity Cricket League that will combat piracy. The stars involved include Salman Khan, Sohail Khan, Riteish Deshmukh, Suniel Shetty, Suriya, Madhavan, Venkatesh Suniel and Mohanlal.

The first season of the league, founded by Vishnu Vardhan Induri, MD and CEO of Local TV and founder and CEO at Bharatstudent.com, was to raise awareness on piracy and ways to combat it. The Indian entertainment industry is estimated to have lost over 4,000 crore and 6,00,000 jobs due to piracy last year. The first edition of the Celebrity Cricket League (CCL) was held in Hyderabad in June this year with four teams - Mumbai Heroes, Chennai Rhinos, Telugu Warriors and Karnataka Bulldozers. Chennai Rhinos beat Karnataka Bulldozers to win the title.

Sahara network has the broadcast rights for the matches. Last month, CCL announced the launch of Bangla and Malayalam teams too. While Malayalam superstar Mohanlal and director Priyadarshan's wife Lissy are owners of the Malayalam cricket team, Sridevi's husband Boney Kapoor owns the Bangla team.

Source: Economic Times

We may have been beaten in CCL, but not broken, says Sudeep

Actor-director Sudeep may have been moved to tears when his team Karnataka Bulldozers lost the cup to Chennai Rhinos at India’s first ever Celebrity Cricket League (CCL) tournament, but now that he’s back home, he insists, “We may have been beaten, but we’re not broken.”

For the team that had, until the finals, won every single match — the loss came more as a surprise. “It does hurt, especially if you look at the kind of effort that each of the actors on the team has put in,” says Sudeep. It also happened to be the one team that almost everybody present felt would win the cup.

So what really changed on the big day? “I would say it was a bad day. We ended up making all our mistakes on one day, but that unfortunately happened to be the day that really mattered. Yes, this is a game and we are not cricketers but professional actors. But ours was the team that took the game most seriously. Some of the other team owners even told us that they were revamping their own teams to at least try to match up to the kind of dedication that our team showed. We had set a benchmark in a way. Which is why losing this match meant a lot more than just a game,” he explains.

However, each time you fall, you only get back up stronger and more determined. Likewise is the case with Karnataka Bulldozers, says Sudeep. “The next season of CCL will take place in February 2012 (the tournaments will take place in February each year — it was delayed this year due to the World Cup). The management is looking at laying down new rules to bring in an increased level of proficiency. We were runners up this time. We will gear up well for the next season. I am aware that the other industries will do the same too, so this is just getting bigger,” promises the captain.

Celebrity Cricket League ( CCL) excites Salman

After the ICC World Cup 2011 and IPL 2011, here comes the Celebrity Cricket League that promises to be bigger and better. With the biggest stars in the country taking on the field, sports has never been this glamourous. For the first time ever, four film fraternities — Tollywood, Kollywood, Sandalwood and Bollywood will play in a T-20 format in this star-studded Cricket League.

And it's all to promote a good cause. The initiative aims to raise awareness on piracy and ways to combat it. As per last year's statistics, the Indian entertainment industry lost over Rs 4,000 crore and 6,00,000 jobs due to piracy. Beginning June 4, in Bengaluru, the first edition of the CCL will unfold. The finals will be held in Hyderabad on June 12.

The league matches promise to be a starry affair all the way. The Telugu Warriors, led by Venkatesh has names like Vishnu, Tarun, Siddarth, Srikanth and Nitin, among others playing for it. Vishnu Manchu owns the team.

The Mumbai Heroes owned by Sohail Khan Entertainment, has Salman Khan, Riteish Deshmukh, Sohail Khan, Arbaaz Khan, Sonu Sood, Harman Baweja, Aftab Shivdasani, Dino Morea, Kunal Khemu and Mahesh Manjrekar among others. The team will be captained by Suniel Shetty.

Chennai Rhinos, led by Suriya, boasts of names like Madhavan, Abbas, Vishal and others. The team is owned by Prasad MD of GVR Infra and Raja Rao Chairman Prathyusha Group.

Karnataka Bulldozers, led by Sudeep, is owned by Ashok Kheny, industrialist-cum-producer, who is the owner of Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises (NICE).

Genelia D'Souza, Sonakshi Sinha, Shriya Saran, Priyamani, Charmee, Taapsee, Samantha, Andrita and Ragini bring in the oomph factor to CCL.

"The idea was to combine two popular Indian religions, Bollywood and cricket, to produce great entertainment for the Indian audience. The film fraternities from South India and Bollywood will battle against each other for the cricket cup," says Sohail.

Word is out that Salman Khan will take his shirt off if his team wins. "I will be there to cheer for our boys. It will be as competitive as any other cricket tournament," he says.

All matches are covered on the Sahara network and tickets for the opening matches in Bengaluru have already been sold out. Sonu Nigam along with 1,200 folk dancers from Karnataka will be performing at the opening ceremony.