Celebrity Cricket League Launch

It was the launch of the cricket franchise known as CCL or Celebrity Cricket League for it’s 3rd consecutive year. The founder and owner of CCL, Vishnu Vardhan Induri, had dreamed of and achieved such an innovative concept that it was hard to believe it had come into fruition. This young entrepreneur has actually been able to bring celebrities from the likes of the Telegu film industry, Hindi, Bengali, Bhojpuri and many others, together to play against each other all in the good natured name of Cricket. He is a visionary and a maverick to say the least and his humility and hospitality is a force to be reckoned with. 

 

I have been working with the CCL group for the past year on one of their companies known as wedmatra.com with the country’s top designers and so was invited to this red carpet event.  I had arrived at the venue in Film City with one of my personal fave designers, Nikhil Mehra of the design duo Shantanu and Nikhil. Shantanu and Nikhil as one of the country’s top bridal couturiers has joined forces with wedmatra.com to design dream wedding for its patrons. It’s a concept that is very exciting for all those getting married with the unique expertise of having a wedding designed from every possible aspect by one of our top designers. From the napkins on the table to the mandap, the flower arrangements, wedding outfits, invitations, the décor... everything would be created by famous designers and packaged and executed by wedmatra.com. 

 

So, with a strapless, shimmery white gown on and white faux fur to match as it was freezing by my standards, we descended on the red carpet to attend the gala event.  What an amazing event it turned out to be with performances from Bipasha Basu, Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif, Prabhu Deva and hilarious comedian Bharti. The highlight of the night was the masti that Ritesh Deshmukh and Ayushman Khurana created on stage. With a few hiccups along the way in terms of event production, the anchor duo were able to keep the crowd in stitches the entire night. 

 

Seeing a legend like Prabhu Deva dance and the casual banter amongst the various film industries was really inspiring. Mohan Lal sang a song and Salman gave a witty speech. It was amazing to be in a room full of so many national actors, a rarity of its own. I have a lot of friends in the South film industry so it was lovely to be able to catch up with them all. It was great to see Rana on stage and we caught up at the after party as well. I was actually Rana’s first ever co–star for a super hero film we did a long time ago produced by Barrie Osborne, (the producer of Lord of the Rings). It unfortunately never released but we’ve been friends since. I’ve also worked with his uncle Nagarjuna on a South film: Don No. 1 which was a huge success and I’ve been very close to Nag and his gorgeous wife since. Such an amazing family, love them to bits. 

 

So, the night was indeed an amalgamation of cricket-meets-the-film-industry in a power packed creation of entertainment. The teams all sat in their uniforms. Nikhil, who had designed the Mumbai Indian Uniforms for IPL, expressed his interest in designing or rather re-designing the uniforms he saw at the event. We sat next to Brinda (the wife of Vishnu and owner of wedmatra.com) who went out of her way all night to take care of us and joined us as we laughed the night away at the comedy onstage. 

 

The night ended at the after party called CCL Glam Nights, which I understand will be an ongoing after party concept as the teams travel from city to city. My monies on the Mumbai Indians of course, headed by Sunil Shetty (Anna) and the Telegu Warriors, headed by mega star Venkatesh (Venky).