They went. They watched. They came back.
Shah Rukh Khan’s angels, the six girls picked as official cheerleaders for the Kolkata Knight Riders, didn’t have to move a muscle in South Africa. Thanks to the rules decided upon by the Indian cricket board and the South African Cricket Association, only local girls are allowed to do the pompom dance in IPL Season Two.
So all Ananya Bera, Sunanda Hiroo, Rupali Kantharia, Sanna Chirawawala, Ritika Chibber and Samyukta Surendar could do was cheer the Knight Riders from the galleries besides hanging out with the players and sightseeing.
“We were told in advance that we will be going as guests and won’t be able to perform,” says city girl Sunanda. Ananya was the other cheerleader from the city.
Sunanda got back on Monday while Ananya from Lake Town returned last week to rejoin classes at St Francis Xavier’s School.
“Yes, it was like a holiday for all of us,” she says. “I would have loved to perform there but we had no option. We did have a lot of fun in the 10 days we were there. The team took really good care of us.”
The six girls camped in Cape Town and didn’t fly to the other venues with the team but absorbed plenty of team talk.
Sunanda says: “Everyone looked very disturbed at the dinner after the Super Over loss to the Rajasthan Royals. Then the coach (John Buchanan) spoke to everyone. He thanked Chris Gayle, he also thanked Sourav Ganguly for being the backbone of the team and made special mention of Yashpal Singh and Ajantha Mendis.”
Now, the angels can only cheer the Knight Riders from their drawing rooms. “We have a one-year contract with Red Chillies but we are sure that we will be able to perform at next year’s IPL,” says Sunanda.
“Shah Rukh was very apologetic. He said: ‘I assure you that next year all of you will be there and everything will be on a larger scale because whatever I had planned didn’t happen this year.’”
He was obviously not talking about cheerleading alone.
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