TV Times -Film star Cricket Carnival on Sunday

‘The Film Star's Cricket Carnival’, featuring top stars in the local film industry will be held at the R.Premadasa International Cricket Stadium on Sunday, May 28.

These stars will be playing to entertain thousands of cricket and film fans and on the other hand would be contributing to fatten up the monthly pensions scheme fund for retired, deserving film artistes. The move comes following a concept put forward by Derana Television Chief Executive Officer Anup Chandrasekharan who has been consistently insisting that the media - both print and electronic - could play a major role to boost the cinema industry. Following proposals made by Derana to the National Film Corporation, under the guidance of its chairman Mr. Asoka Serasinghe, fully backing this project to make this a grand event. Mr. Serasinghe believes that this project is a very good platform to bring all the artistes together more importantly to help raise funds for the Retired Artistes Pension Scheme to look after the retired artistes who have contributed in a big way to the betterment of Sri Lankan Film Industry.

All the matches will be friendly exhibition matches. Teams that will be in action will be the "Comedians team" led by the popular Tennyson Cooray, 'Actors team' captained by Arjun Kamlanath, "Actresses team" led by Sumana Amarasinghe, 'Stunt Men" team captained by Teddy Vidyalankara, "Singers team" led by the young Singing sensation Champa Kalahari etc. Apart from the films stars there will a team comprising of some ex Sri Lankan Cricketers led by Arjuna Ranatunge. The final match would be between the Past cricketers and the combined team of the Film stars, which will be played under lights.

In addition to Cricket action, there will be a lot of entertaining act between the matches. During the breaks, there will musical, skits and dance acts will be performed by various artistes. All these acts to be performed on a special stage at the ground itself. Soon after all the Cricket, there is a grand musical show which will feature some of the most popular artistes in the country and there will be a lot of surprises as well.

The main sponsor of the event is ICICI Bank. This is their biggest sponsorship of ICICI Bank after commencing their operations in Sri Lanka in January this year.
The "ICICI Bank Stars Cricket Carnival" will be telecast live on Derana from 3.30pm.

The telecast of these matches will be in international cricket coverage standards, and whole TV production will be handled by a special international TV crew. The tickets will be available at Cargills Food City outlets in the Western Province, Head office of National Film Corporation and ICICI Bank Head Office Kollupitiya and at R. Premadasa Stadium on the day of the event.

All proceeds will be donated to the "Retired Artistes Pension Scheme" and there is also a special account at ICICI Bank Kollupitiya, where public could make their contribution for this noble cause.