If the Indian Premier League (IPL) reinjected glamour into cricket from its inaugural year in 2008, the Women's Premier League (WPL) is upping the ante in its second edition starting today (February 23, 2024).
Even before the sports stars - led by Harmanpreet Kaur for the Mumbai Indians and Delhi Capitals captain Meg Lanning - open the 22-match tournament (on till the WPL Final on March 17) at 8 pm (IST), Bollywood celebrities Shah Rukh Khan, Shahid Kapoor, Kartik Aaryan, Tiger Shroff, Sidharth Malhotra and Varun Dhawan will perform in a film star-studded opening ceremony from 6.30 pm at Bengaluru's M. Chinnaswamy Stadium.
To be sure, the connection between Bollywood celebrities and cricket goes back decades in India. Shah Rukh Khan co-owns four cricket teams: the Kolkata Knight Riders, the Abu Dhabi Knight Riders, the Los Angeles Knight Riders, and the Trinbago Knight Riders. Juhi Chawla co-owns SRK's teams. And Preity Zinta co-owns the Punjab Kings along with Mohit Burman, Ness Wadia, and Karan Paul.
Cricket and Bollywood, of course, have another long-standing connection in India. From Mansoor Ali Khan (Tiger) Pataudi to Mohd Azharuddin, Harbhajan Singh, Yuvraj Singh, Zaheer Khan, K.L. Rahul and Virat Kohli, many cricketers have married Bollywood actors.
What to expect during the WPL 2024 opening ceremony
For many days now, the Women's Premier League's official Instagram page, wplt20, has been posting updates on Bollywood actors practising for the opening ceremony.
Hours before the start of play, WPL posted a video of Shah Rukh Khan again, with the message: "With the giants of Bollywood all set to rock the stage, it's time to kick off Season 2 of the #TATAWPL in style! / Tune in LIVE at 6.30 PM on @sports18.official or @officialjiocinema and join #CricketKaQueendom!"
A video of actor Shahid Kapoor at the stadium was captioned: "I am a huge cricket buff. I want to celebrate women’s cricket and I am very happy that like @iplt20, the #WPL too has come up."
Indeed, when India's women's cricket league started on March 4, 2023, at the DY Patil in Stadium in Navi Mumbai - 15 years after the IPL had turned cricket-viewing into a sort of party, with music and vuvuzela horns - it had come after years of advocating for an equal platform for women. Women's cricket had been brought under the Board of Control for Cricket in India, and the match fee for women players was on par with what men were getting paid for the first time in the history of the sport.
Indeed, all signs point to how women's cricket is on its way to setting up a new "Queendom" now.
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