It's SRK vs Mallya

B-Town brigade will turn up to cheer King Khan and the Knight Riders at the opening ceremony match against Vijay Mallya's Royal Challengers

Though IPL’s opening ceremony on April 18 at Bangalore will have performances by Zayed Khan and Katrina Kaif on behalf of Vijay Mallya’s team, Shah Rukh Khan’s team won’t be left behind.

Although Khan isn’t planning any acts, he’s carting B-Town’s glamorous brigade to boost the morale of the Kolkata Knight Riders. SRK’s Kolkata Knight Riders is being led by Sourav Ganguly while Mallya’s Royal Challengers is being captained by Rahul Dravid.

Event manager of BCCI, Venkat Vardhan of DNA Networks, admits, “Katrina and Zayed will be performing for both the Bangalore and Kolkata matches for the Royal Challengers while Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy will be performing at Bangalore. I don’t know about Kolkata Knight Riders’ plans. Being the home team, they will have an event in Kolkata.”

Says an actress on condition of anonymity, “SRK has invited lots of stars to attend the first few matches of his teams including the opening ceremony and the match at Kolkata on April 20. Karan Johar, Gauri Khan, Arjun Rampal and Mehr Jessia, Sanjay and Maheep Kapoor, Chunky and Bhavna Pandey, Riteish Deshmukh, Queenie Dhody, Kajal Anand, Karisma Kapoor and Malaika Arora will be attending the matches. Priyanka Chopra, Amrita Arora, Kareena Kapoor and Farah Khan were invited too.”

The Morani brothers were to do a grand event for the opening ceremony in Bangalore but that had to be cancelled after instructions from Bangalore franchisee. So the Moranis will only be doing firework displays.

Sanjay Gupta, who will be directing Katrina Kaif and Zayed Khan in Mallya’s IPL music video, sums it up, “I know Katrina is performing. I will be shooting the video with her on April 15 in Mumbai. She’s being presented as a rock star diva in it. She was No 1 on my wish list and Vijay made it happen. The opening matches are in Bangalore and Kolkata with the two most hyped and celebrated teams Kolkata Knight Riders and Royal Challengers it will be fun!”

SRK’s close buddy Farah Khan says, “I was invited too but I couldn’t go as my babies are too young at two months. I can’t leave them for 24 hours.”

Karan Johar says, “Yes I will be going for both the ceremonies to cheer Shah Rukh’s team. It’s like my own.”

Upala KBR