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Lollywood takes on the pros
Showbiz and cricket are two disparate worlds, yet they booth seem to share a few common denominators such as plenty of theatrics, lots of drama and enough action to keep one glued to their seats. These circumstances considered, it was quite understandable when personalities from the world of Lollywood, television and pop music merged forces in a friendly night match against the young guns of the Pakistani cricket team, supposedly for a good cause.
Film stars Javed Sheikh and Ghulam Mohiuddin came up with the idea of arranging the match and approached Lt-Gen Tauqir Zia, Chairman PCB who gave the go ahead signal and thus the event was arranged recently at the Qaddafi Stadium, Lahore. The limited overs match between the Showbiz-XI and the Pakistan Cricket team started amid cheers as spectators thronged the stadium to welcome the new faces of the national team.
The Showbiz-XI featured Javed Sheikh, Momy Rana, Saud, Shan, Ghulam Mohiuddin, Arbaz Khan, Saleem Sheikh, Behroze Subzwari, Shahzad Roy, Fakhr-i-Alam, Khalid Butt, Ameer Khan, Pappu Samrat and one unknown! The Pak-XI had Rashid Latif, Yousuf Youhana, Hafeez, Muhammad Sami, Taufeeq Umar, Naveed Latif, Junaid Zia, Shabbir, Yasir Ali and two newcomers.
The toss, being won by the Showbiz-XI, initially led to a situation in the dressing room when a controversy gripped Captain Javed Sheikh, who had to decide who to play and who to drop. Javed has always been a promoter of congeniality in the showbiz world and was wise to dispel the notions of his fellow artists on some differences between Ghulam Mohiuddin and Sajid Hasan who was there as a commentator for PTV. Sajid, it was said, while organizing cricket matches in Karachi and other places had been ignoring Lahore artists. However,
Javed prevented any unsavoury situation by ensuring that Fakhr-i-Alam, Shahzad Roy and Behroze Subzwari (who specially flew from Karachi) played in the match. Humayun, being a senior artist and having done films too, deserved to be on the team, but it appears that the singers had better voices!
On the lighter side, let’s say that for the film stars, it was serious cricket, and for cricketers, it was acting! But it was all for fun and frolic with many film actresses like Resham, Meera, Sana, Veena Malik, Laila and TV stars like Ayesha Khan, Shagufta Eijaz, Humayun Saeed and Adnan Siddiqui as cheerleaders extending support for the Lollywood squad.
The spectators comprised film enthusiasts in large numbers and it was interesting to observe that Humayun Saeed, Adnan Siddiqui and Ayesha, who starred in the recently concluded Mehndi, were more popular than some film stars there, as the crowd swarmed to see them and both Humayun and Adnan obliged by going to the fence and shaking hands with them.
The stars of the cricket and film industries got every facility to make the night a glittery one, and it turned out to be just that when Pak-XI posted 323 runs for Showbiz-XI to chase, which they obviously couldn’t, but it was great to see Saud and Shan play professionally with some very stylish knocks towards the boundary, not forgetting two great catches by the showbiz stalwarts.
The Showbiz-XI’s frolic received its due importance from the Governor of Punjab who specially visited Qaddafi Stadium and met all the participating members of the match as well as the organizers.
Both the PCB and the Showbiz-XI deserve a ‘Well done.’ It was fun while it lasted, and hopefully Karachiites will also be given a treat of this kind to enjoy and appreciate both cricket and acting.
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