The Celebrity Cricket League, conceived on the lines of the hugely popular Indian Premier League, lived up to the billing in at least one respect. The teams that made the summit clash are from Chennai and Karnataka, just like they were at the recent IPL-4 final.
However, the Telugu Warriors were found wanting as they lost to Kannada Bulldozers in Vizag — sloppy fielding and pedestrian bowling did them in. With Tarun getting hit for 35 runs in two overs and Adarsh giving away 22 runs in one over, the hosts almost threw the game away. Raja multiplied the Warriors’ woes with his misfields — even dropping a sitter.
The boisterous crowd did get behind their team but to no avail. An Adarsh inswinger that trapped Bhaskar, a few good saves by Samrat and Akhil, especially when the latter jostled up the Kannada captain Sudeep, were a few highlights.
“It was disappointing for us since we had a good chance of reserving a berth in the final,” said Vishnu Manchu, owner of Telugu team while his counterpart, Tamil actor Sharat Kumar, praised the Warriors “for fighting it out till the last ball.” Captain Venkatesh who cheered the team and kept offering tips to players all along was also very disappointed. “We should have bowled and fielded better, he said.
The Warriors had their moments but that wasn’t enough. Adarsh’s fighting 45, Charan Teja’s tenacious 20 and Akhil’s hard-hitting half-century helped Tollywood post a decent total of 171. But the Kannadigas bulldozed it as their batsman belted the ball around. Bhaskar and Dhruv stood out with a 70-run stand that laid a strong foundation.
After playing two matches for the Telugu Warriors, actor Siddharth was conspicuous by his absence at the crucial tie at Vizag. While some believed he perhaps was busy with his shooting commitments, a teammate let the cat out of the bag! Apparently Siddarth got to know about the team’s plan to drop him for the match as his performance wasn’t up to the mark. And that annoyed him. “Childish behaviour! Even Vishnu Manchu, the owner of the team who invested crores of rupees, in the larger interest agreed to sit out. Nitin and Srikant too stayed out to accommodate better players. But Siddarth took it badly. Some of his colleagues say he did message them saying he was dejected and felt cheated at being left out because he was promised to be among the playing 11. Very unsporting,” said a teammate.
