The IPL fever seems to have gripped the Indian parliamentarians as well and they are all set to play a friendly Twenty20 match against the Mumbai Heroes, the cricket team of Bollywood, on May 20 at the picturesque HPCA stadium in Dharamsala.
"It is a new initiative to promote sports in the country. Film stars are widely followed and so we have joined hands with Bollywood in this initiative," BJP MP from Hamirpur and captain of the MPs team, Anurag Thakur told reporters.
"We have invited the Mumbai Heroes for the match and we are honoured that they have accepted our invitation.
"We are working to make it an annual event. The proposal is still in initial stages. We had our first meeting today but in near future we may rope in teams from other walks of life as well," said Thakur, who is also the joint secretary of the BCCI.
Thakur further added that "all the resources raised from the match will be donated to charity".
Apart from Thakur, other dignitaries who were present on the occasion were BJP MP Rajiv Pratap Rudy, who is also the manager of the parliamentarians' team, BJP national spokesperson Syed Shahnawaz Hussain, captain of Mumbai Heroes Sunil Shetty among others.
Rudy said with some former cricketers in its rank, Indian MP's cricket team is one of the strongest in the world.
He also said that Sachin Tendulkar, who is now a Rajya Sabha MP, is automatically a part of the team and hopes in future he will turn for the parliamentarians.
"Sachin has now become a part of our cricket team. We just need to talk to him," Rudy said.
The Indian parliamentarians team include a few former India cricketers in Mohammad Azharuddin, Kirti Azad and Navjot Singh Sidhu and will also have young MPs like Kailash Singh Deo, Dushayant Singh, Kuldeep Singh Bishnoi, Deepender Singh Hooda.
Mumbai Heroes captain and Bollywood actor, Sunil Shetty said the film industry hopes to work together with the MPs to make this event a success.
The team from Bollywood will have stars like Ritesh Deshmukh, Sohail Khan, Aftab Shivdasani, Aditya Roy Kapoor, Irrfan Khan among others.
