Had it been another field, some other opposition and some other game, Virat Kohli would have been all too happy to let the role of captain lie with MS Dhoni. But the Indian cricket’s captain-in-waiting would not mind taking over from Dhoni when his cricketing bunch takes on Bollywood stars in a charity football match here on Saturday.
The Delhi boy would lead his All Heart Football Club (AHFC) against Abhishek Bachchan’s All Stars Football Club (ASFC) at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in the match scheduled for an 8pm kick off. Self-confessed football fans like Bachchan Jr and his teammate for Saturday, Ranbir Kapoor, have been practising hard for a long time to be fit enough for this game. With several other Indian film and television industry heartthrobs in the side, the ASFC might not be able to give the cricketers any competition when it comes to playing the game, but they surely can steal the thunder with the female fan following.
Though the AHFC also boasts of many names that have their own sphere of followers, for both cricketing and non-cricketing reasons, they surely wouldn’t want a loss, even though in a charitable cause, to follow recent drubbing of Australia. And, their more than frequent football sessions during team practices have kept them in good stead for such an encounter.
With former and current Indian football captain Bhaichung Bhutia and Sunil Chettri respectively bringing the real football among cricketers and stars, albeit in the sides’ coach’s roles, Saturday would decide who reigns — Heart or Stars.
Teams (from)
All Heart Football Club: Virat Kohli (C), Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Ishant Sharma, Ashish Nehra, Rohit Sharma, Yuvraj Singh, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Praveen Kumar, Ashoke Dinda, Pragyan Ojha, Munaf Patel, Harbhajan Singh, Zaheer Khan, Manoj Tiwary, Harmeet Singh
Coach: Sunil Chettri
All Stars Football Club: Abhishek Bachchan (C) , Ranbir Kapoor, Karan Wahi, Marc Robinson, Raj Kundra, Dino Morea, Caesar Gonsalves, Aditya Roy Kapoor, Sachin Joshi, Varun Dhawan, Ritwik Bhattacharya, Shabir Ahluwalia, Ameet Gaur, Amit Sadh, Romeo Gates, Jignesh Antala, Mazhar Dalvi, Jas Bilang, Rohan Shreshtha, Nishant Mehra
Coach: Bhaichung Bhutia