CRICKET RSS WORLD

The celebrity quotient during the opening ceremony of the inaugural IPL may have been provided by biggies from Bollywood but the tournament's shift to South Africa could lend it an international flavour this time around.

Reports suggest Clint Eastwood and Morgan Freeman - who are working on the Human Factor, a film on how Nelson Mandela used the 1995 rugby World Cup win to help heal post-apartheid race relations - are among the headliners at this year’s ceremony. If true, one of the organisers’ tasks will be to stop them from doing a Groucho Marx (asking “When does the game itself begin?” while watching the match). Pop star George Michael and alternative rock band Snow Patrol are other names being bandied about - though curiously no mention has been made of cricket's biggest rockstar fans, Mick Jagger and his fellow Rolling Stones. Ah well, you can't always get what you want...