Some of the Bollywood stars who will be part of the ‘masala’ cricket match

Guwahati, Dec. 20: It won’t be just another typical game of cricket at the Nehru Stadium next month: there’ll be glitter from tinsel town on the pitch.

From Bollywood’s most-talked-about pair, Abhishek Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai, to Salman Khan, Fardeen Khan, Esha Deol and Sonali Bendre, it will be masala cricket at its best — and for the first time in the state.

The match, organised by the Assam Cricket Association, will be held towards the end of January. It is aimed at popularising women’s cricket in the state. The Assam women’s team will play against a Bollywood XI, which will feature several stars from the film world.

While announcing the proposed match, ACA secretary Bikash Baruah said the process of finalising the deals with the other stars are on. The match was finalised with the help of BCCI women’s cricket convenor Subhangini Kulkarni during his visit to Mumbai on Monday.

“We are going to fix the dates and other details at our next meeting. The tentative dates are likely to be end-January because the Nehru Stadium will be engaged for the 33rd National Games in February,” Baruah said.

He added that it would be a limited overs match, where the Stars XI will take on the state women’s squad. The Star XI is also likely to include some of Assam’s women players so as to make it a full team.

The ACA is also toying with the idea of inviting cine artistes from Assam to play in the match.

The proceeds from the match will be used for developing women’s cricket, which the ACA adopted a few months ago after the women’s counterpart was merged with the BCCI. “The funds raised thereby will be distributed equally among all the district units for holding coaching camps for their women players,” Baruah said.

Unlike the 12 one-day internationals held at the Nehru Stadium on earlier occasions, there won’t be a single complimentary ticket for the match, expected to be a sell-out extravaganza. “Since it will be a fundraiser match, there cannot be any question of complimentary passes. However, the tickets will be of nominal denomination,” the ACA secretary said.

In order to preclude security scares, the celluloid stars will fly in for the match in the morning and return by the evening. Baruah said a convenient flight arrangement would be worked out with the help of Union minister Sontosh Mohan Dev, who is likely to discuss the issue with civil aviation minister Praful Patel and ACA president Gautam Roy.