Though it was only an exhibition match, Indiantelevision.com's Indian Telly squad, comprising of actors from Tellywood and the Sri Lankan cricketing great Aravinda de Silva, fought tooth and nail with the Super Six All Stars in a super sixes game. They lost the match but won many accolades for their good game.

Indian Telly squad: Bottom: Skipper Manav Vij, Maninder, Naman Shaw. Top (from left): Pieyush Chopra, Karan Veer Sood, coach Mohit Chaturvedi, Jay Soni and Himanshu Malhotra.

Summarizing his experience Indian Telly squad skipper Manav Vij said, “The best thing for us from this game was that we played like cricketers and not actors. We are slightly disappointed with the result but this experience gives us the impetus to practice regularly.”

For those who thrive on statistics, the Indian Telly squad restricted the Super Six All Stars to 74 in 5 overs, which was the second lowest score of the day. However, despite batting being their strong point, Indian Telly Squad could only muster 45 before the lights went off with two balls remaining in the final over. A few members of Telly squad called for Duckworth-Lewis but having lost 3-4 wickets, the game was all but over.

The scoreboard may read a comfortable win for the All Stars but the Telly boys were in the hunt for best part of the game. In the end, it was former Kiwi all-rounder Craig MacMillan who proved to be the difference maker. The powerful Kiwi hammered an unbeaten 28, took two wickets and conceded just two runs in his only over.

While Craig shone for the All Stars, the glam boys were let down by their international player Aravinda de Silva. The former Sri Lankan great could only muster 11 runs and spilled runs both as a bowler and fielder. “Honestly speaking, we expected more from Aravinda but unfortunately he let us down today. Besides, we were also not happy with our bats. We simply were not able to stroke the ball well.” chided Manav.

While Aravinda drew flak from all, another Telly squad member was heard saying, “We should have batted first. The pressure of chasing was too much for us.” Skipper Manav too endorsed this view. “In hindsight, that would have been the correct decision. The lights weren’t also great when we came to bat.

But Craig MacMillan had encouraging words for us. It can only get better for us from hereon. Next year, we just don’t want to play an exhibition game but want to compete in the main contest.”

Zee Sports will telecast highlights of the quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals on the March 16th 2008.