Cricket fun, but challenging, say Bollywood actors

Bollywood stars and filmmakers participating at the second edition of the Celebrity Cricket League here say it was a good break from their hectic schedules but at the same time represented a good challenge.

“It is indeed a good break as filming can be boring all together and sports and boys always go together,” said actor Ashish Choudhary, team member of Sohail Khan owned Mumbai Heroes.

The 20-20 cricket tournament has teams not only from Bollywood but also from Telugu, Kannada, Bengali and Tamil cinema.

Mumbai Heroes lost to Karnataka Bulldozers by 53 runs in a semi-final match here Saturday.

Mumbai Heroes included actors and filmmakers like Bobby Deol, Suniel Shetty, Riteish Deshmukh, Aftab Shivdasani, Angad Bedi, Apoorva Lakhia, Sunny Singh, Ashish Chaudhary and Manav Gohil.

The tournament helped actors understand each other better at a personal level, said Riteish. “We play as a team we don’t play as individuals. We have come together, we have grown to know each other better as people as well as players.”

However, some do admit that playing cricket is challenge and a lot of team members are nursing either fractured knee or fractured finger.

“It is a good break but it is not fun anymore. Now, we take it seriously. We don’t want to make fools of ourselves as people are watching us on television.

We go for practice and people have got hurt also. I have a fracture in my hand and we still come and play, which we don’t generally do in films,” said Lakhia, who made “Shootout at Lokhandwala”.

Lakhia has fractured his finger. During the first match in Sharjah, he suffered a thigh muscle strain. He also has a hair line fracture in the thigh.

Ashish Chaudhary also couldn’t play the game as he, too, fractured his finger during a practice session. Actor Angad Bedi is nursing a broken knee and Aftab Shivadasani also played despite being on medication for injuries. Riteish was seen putting ice on his hand after getting hit by the ball during the semi-final match.

“I couldn’t play because I broke my finger during practice but I came for the game and cheered for our team as much as I could,” said Ashish.

“Now everyone is really serious we played our best. We practiced well. The people of our industry is known to play a lot of games for charity whether it’s cricket or any other sport.

“This (CCL) suddenly changes the whole thing around it is more competitive..it works out to be completely professional thing. It’s a challenge because a lot of people are watching us,” he added.