CCL 2025: 7 and not 8 teams in the 11th season of tournament; here’s why

The Celebrity Cricket League, the marque exhibition tournament featuring actors from film industries across the country, which began in 2011 with four teams – Karnataka Bulldozers, Chennai Rhinos, Telugu Warriors and Mumbai Heroes –then grew to six the very next year with the addition of the Kerala Strikers and Bengal Tigers. By year 3 there were eight teams, with the newbies onboard Veer Marathi and Bhojpuri Dabanggs. By season 6, the Punjab team – Punjab De Sher replaced Veer Marathi and the tournament has been an event featuring 8 teams, until now.

Season 11 of the Celebrity Cricket League, which kicked off on February 8 in Bengaluru and will go on till March 1, 2025, has only 7 teams in action. While the season was initially announced with all eight, closer to the commencement of the tournament it became clear that one of them will not be in the mix. Turns out that the Kerala Strikers have withdrawn from the competition and from what we hear, the team representing the Malayalam film industry, will not be back.

In the 8 editions that the Kerala Strikers played, they were in 2 finals and emerged runners-up, and made it to another semi-final, but have more often than not been knocked out at group stage. According to a source, the decision to withdraw from the tournament came because of a lack of sponsorship for several years, which forced the owners to foot all expenditure of the team year-on-year. “There’s been no means of recovery for team owner Mr Rajkumar, who has been funding the team’s CCL stint over the years. It made no sense to continue bleeding money,” says the source.

Meanwhile, even though Season 11 has just begun, Kiccha Sudeep has also announced a new initiative that will kick off in Season 12, wherein 2 commoners will be chosen to play for any side. These 2 participants will be chosen after intensive scrutiny, to ensure that they have not played the game at a professional level earlier.