CCL 2023: Mohanlal withdraws as non-playing captain of Kerala Strikers, asks organisers to not use his images

Despite the organisers of this year’s Celebrity Cricket League promoting Mohanlal as the non-playing captain of Kerala Strikers, the Malayalam superstar was conspicuous by his absence in the past two games of the team. Now, we have learnt why the actor was not present at the team’s matches with the latest game being played at Jaipur, which is hardly 10 hours away from Jaisalmer where the actor is currently shooting for Lijo Jose Pellissery’s Malaikottai Vaaliban.

According to reports, Mohanlal as well as Association of Malayalam Movie Artistes, who were the main organisers of Kerala Strikers team, have pulled out of the event. Idavela Babu, who was Kerala Strikers’ manager for the past few editions of the event, announced that AMMA no longer had any stake in the team, which is now managed by Rajkumar Sethupathy, wife Sripriya and Shaji Jaison.

Babu had also clarified that Mohanlal had reached out to the organizer to no longer use his name or images as part of the publicity material for CCL or Kerala Strikers. Mohanlal, meanwhile, still owns a “small stake of the team”, Babu said, adding that the reason for AMMA backing out of the Celebrity Cricket League was due to differences with the main organisers of the event that features teams from various film industries such as Bengal Tigers, Bhojpuri Dabanggs, Chennai Rhinos, Karnataka Bulldozers, Kerala Strikers, Mumbai Heroes, Punjab De Sher and Telugu Warriors.

Though Kunchacko Boban is the captain of Kerala Strikers, the team was led by Unni Mukundan for their matches against Telugu Strikers and Karnataka Bulldozers. Kerala Strikers lost both their matches and are currently at the bottom in the points table.

Kerala Strikers’ next match is against Mumbai Heroes, which is led by Ritiesh Deshmukh, in Thiruvananthapuram Greenfield International Stadium on March 5. The home team will be looking to earn their first points in the match.

Apart from Kunchacko and Unni, the Malayalam team’s squad also has Vivek Gopan, Rajeev Pillai, Antony Varghese, Shafique Rahman, Siddharth Menon, Vijay Yesudas, Manikuttan, Madan Mohan, Arun Benny, Suresh Nair and Arjun Nandakumar.