Celebrity Cricket League

The Celebrity Cricket League (CCL) is a non-professional men's cricket league in India, contested by Eight teams consisting of film actors from Eight major regional film industries of Indian cinema. The league commenced in 2011.[1] Since its inception, television viewership of CCL matches have grown to become more popular than the International Cricket Council (ICC) games.[2]

The CCL has been widely reported in the media


EstablishmentThe CCL was inspired by the popularity of the Indian Premier League, a Twenty20 tournament with franchises in major Indian cities. Vishnu Vardhan Induri, a Serial Entrepreneur from Hyderabad is the Founder and Managing Director of CCL who started CCL in 2010 by selling franchise rights for four teams in the inaugural season. For the second season two additional teams were added.[7]

[edit] First seasonThe inaugural season of the league took place in 2011, which was contested by 4 teams - Chennai Rhinos, Telugu Warriors, Mumbai Heroes and Karnataka Bulldozers.[8] With CCL Season 1, the organisers planned to create awareness about Anti Piracy.[9] Chennai Rhinos defeated Karnataka Bulldozers in a thriller and emerged as the inaugural CCL champions.

[edit] Second seasonThe second season was conducted from 13 Jan to 13 Feb 2012. Two new cricket teams, the Kerala Strikers and the Bengal Tigers were added to the CCL. Hindi Film Industry Team "Mumbai Heroes" selected Sharjah as its home ground.[10] Chennai Rhinos defeated Karnataka Bulldozers for the second time in a row and emerged as the CCL 2 champions.

[edit] Third seasonMain article: 2013 Celebrity Cricket League
The Third Season will have two new teams, Veer Marathi representing the Marathi Film Industry and Bhojpuri Dabbangs representing the Bhojpuri Film Industry. Season 3 Curtain Raiser Event was a grand affair in Mumbai on 19 Jan 2013,[11] where Salman Khan,[12] Katrina Kaif, Bipasha Basu, Prabhu Deva performed with many other celebrities.[13] Opening Ceremony is at Kochi on 9 Feb 2013 where Kerala Strikers will be playing against Mumbai Heroes. Popular Bollywood actor Bipasha Basu is appointed as the brand ambassador for Celebrity Cricket League (CCL), Season 3 with Kajal Agarwal.[14][15]

[edit] Teams and performance[edit] TeamsTeam Industry State Captain Team Owner
Kerala Strikers Mollywood Kerala Mohanlal Lissy Priyadarshan
Chennai Rhinos Kollywood Tamil Nadu Vishal K. Ganga Prasad
Telugu Warriors Tollywood Andhra Pradesh Daggubati Venkatesh Mahesh Reddy
Mumbai Heroes Bollywood Maharashtra Suniel Shetty Sohail Khan
Karnataka Bulldozers Sandalwood Karnataka Sudeep Ashok Kheny
Bengal Tigers Bengali cinema West Bengal Jeet Boney Kapoor
Bhojpuri Dabbangs Bhojpuri cinema Bihar Manoj Tiwari Prateek Kanakia
Veer Marathi Marathi cinema Maharashtra Riteish Deshmukh Riteish Deshmukh
[edit] PerformanceTeam 2011 2012 2013
Bengal Tigers N/A GS GS
Bhojpuri Dabanggs N/A N/A GS
Chennai Rhinos W W GS
Karnataka Bulldozers R R W
Kerala Strikers N/A GS SF
Mumbai Heroes GS SF GS
Telugu Warriors GS SF R
Veer Marathi N/A N/A SF

Notes:

W = Winner; R = Runner ; SF = SemiFinalist; GS = Groupstage; N/a = Not Played
[edit] VenuesBangalore: M. Chinnaswamy Stadium
Chennai: M. A. Chidambaram Stadium
Kochi: Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium
Hyderabad: Rajiv Gandhi International Cricket Stadium
Hyderabad: Lal Bahadur Shastri Stadium
Pune: Subrata Roy Sahara Stadium
Dubai: DSC Cricket Stadium
Sharjah: Sharjah Cricket Association Stadium
Siliguri: Kanchenjunga Stadium
Visakhapatnam: ACA-VDCA Stadium
[edit] Squads 2012Mumbai Heroes Telugu Warriors Chennai Rhinos Karnataka Bulldozers Kerala Strikers
Sunil Shetty (Captain)
Aftab Shivdasani (Vice-Captain)
Aashish Chaudhary
Angad Bedi
Apoorva Lakhia
Bobby Deol
Kabir Sadanand
Kunal Khemu
Manav Gohi
Raja Bherwani
Sunny Singh
Sachiin Joshi
Shabir Ahluwala
Sharad Kelkar
Sohail Khan
Sonu Sood
Tushar Jalota
Varun Badola
Varun Rao
Vatsal Seth
 Venkatesh (Captain)
Tarun (Vice-Captain)
Adarsh
Ajay
Akhil
Ayyappa Sharma
Ram Charan Teja
Khayyum
Nandakishore
Nitin
Prabhu
Raghu
Rajeev Kanakala
Srikanth
Taraka Ratna
Vijay Samrat
Viswa
 Vishal (Captain)
Vikranth (Vice-Captain)
Arya
Bharath
Hamsavardhan
Jiiva
Jithan Ramesh
Karthik Kumar
Prithivi
Ramana
Rishi
Shaam
Shiva
Shanthnoo
Sri Balaji
Vishnu
 Sudeep (Captain)
Dhruva (Vice-Captain)
Abhimanyu
Bhaskar
Bhuvan
Tarun Chandra
Chiranjeevi Sarja
Chiru
Darshan
Dharma
Jai Karthik
Pradeep
Rahul
Rajeev
Saurav
Shivrajkumar
Taran Sudhir
Viswas
 Mohanlal (Captain)
Indrajith (Vice-Captain)
Rajeev Pillai
Nivin Pauly
Manikuttan
Saiju Kurup
Riyaz Khan
Vinu Mohan
Bineesh Kodiyeri
Vivek Gopan
Prajod Kalabhavan
Suresh Nair
Shafique Rehman
Rahul Madhav
Unni Mukundan
Bala
Munna Simon
Nikhil Menon
Rejith Menon
Asif Ali
Kunchacko Boban

[edit] 2012 team standings2012 CCL Points Tally
Team Pld W L NR Pts NRR  
Telugu Warriors 5 4 0 1 9 +1.060
Karnataka Bulldozers (R) 5 3 2 0 6 +2.261
Mumbai Heroes 5 2 2 1 5 +0.116 Teams that qualified for the semi-finals.
Chennai Rhinos (C) 5 2 3 0 4 −0.307
Kerala Strikers 5 2 3 0 4 −1.699 Teams that failed to qualify for the semi-finals.
Bengal Tigers 5 1 4 0 2 −1.533
[edit] Squads 2011Mumbai Heroes Telugu Warriors Chennai Rhinos Karnataka Bulldozers
Sunil Shetty (Captain)
Sohail Khan (Vice-Captain)
Aftab Shivdasani
Angad Bedi
Apoorva Lakhia
Arbaaz Khan
Harman Baweja
Kabir Sadanand
Kunal Khemu
Mahesh Manjrekar
Ritesh Deshmukh
Salman Khan
Shabir Ahluwala
Sonu Sood
Sunny Singh
Varun Badola
 Venkatesh (Captain)
Vishnu (Vice-Captain)
Adarsh
Ajay
Ayyappa Sharma
Nitin
Prabhu
Raghu
Raja Bhelwani
Rajeev Kanakala
Siddharth
Srikanth
Tarun
Taraka Ratna
Vijay Samrat
 most successive players
Vishal (Captain)
Abbas (Vice-Captain)
Arya
Bharath
Jayam Ravi
Jithan Ramesh
Madhavan
Ramana
Sarath Kumar
Shaam
Shiva
Shanthnoo
Vikranth
surya
Vishnu
 Sudeep (Captain)
Dhruv (Vice-Captain)
Abhimanyu
Bhaskar
Tarun Chandra
Chiru
Dharma
Diganth
Shankar Gowda
Jai Karthik
Mahesh
Pradeep
Rahul
Rajeev
Shivrajkumar
Taran Sudhir
Varma
Vishwas

[edit] 2011 team standingsTeam Played Won Lost Tied NR Points
Karnataka Bulldozers (R) 2 2 0 0 0 4
Chennai Rhinos (C) 2 1 1 0 0 2
Telugu Warriors 2 1 0 0 0 4
Mumbai Heroes 2 0 2 0 0 0

(C) = Eventual Champion; (R) = Runner-up