Dilip Agrawal On How ACB Was Founded

Dilip Agrawal, the founder of Actors Cricket Bash (ACB) talks about the inception of the tournament and its future to JYOTHI VENKATESH 

How did you conceptualize ACB? 

I have a team since the last 12 years called Boxy Boys. It was the first team which had all actors, stars and models in it. And since then, it's been growing. It's become like almost 40 to 50 members and I could not accommodate everybody in one team and play. So, the best solution was to divide them into four teams and kind of have a tournament of our own, so that’s how ACB was formed.

Why and how you kept such a name? 

Shakespeare said what is in the name but yes, there is something in the name here because it's difficult to tell everybody every time that they all are actors, they all stars. We could have had a lot of other names starting with stars, celebrities or something but these names were very common. So, I thought that if I include the word ‘celebrity’ in the title, people in regional spaces and the other cities might not understand immediately. ‘Actor’ was easy to understand. So, that was how I decided on Actors Cricket Bash as it's easy to understand, simple to know what this event is all about.

What are the dates of matches?

The league matches are on 25th and 26th May and 1st June and the finals are on the 2nd of June. All the matches will be played under lights at Air India Ground , Kalina. All these dates are on the weekends.

It is all males and serious cricket. How do you feel?

I feel very good that I did something like this because since so many years I've noticed TV actors are not really taken seriously. In India, everybody and anybody who knows cricket love a serious game of cricket. All the actors are excited, everybody around us is excited. They have their own community which owns something like a serious professional cricket tournament.

Why did you think of 4 teams only?

It's very difficult to get all the actors for four days first of all. Secondly, I wanted serious cricket. So, I wanted people who play serious cricket and they had to be a part of this first season of ACB. The idea initially was to have regional teams also included but the first thought was that I have already so many actors here, so my first season should be about these actors. Once the route is set, then other regional teams will come in as well. So, in the second season, I will increase the teams.

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