Mumbai, June 03: Finally the suspense about who feature as contestants on the third season of Khatron Ke Khiladi, with Priyanka Chopra as a host, is over. Colors, the channel helming the show in India, admits that the cricketers are no longer on board for the action-reality show and that they will shortly be replaced by young and ‘good-looking’ men from diverse fields.
The channel spokesperson says, “Although the cricketers have not been made available despite prior commitments by the BCCI (Board Of Cricket Control In India), the show will proceed with handsome men from different fields.”
The show will be shot at the location finalised in Brazil and in the same time frame as was decided upon at the onset. According to industry sources, the suspended IPL Commissioner Lalit Modi had inked a deal of approximately Rs 100 crore (Rs 35-35-30 crore to be paid every year) with the channel regarding various entertainment programmes to make the cricket tournament a year-round property.
Modi had reportedly committed quite a few well-known cricketers to the channel. Some of them include Harbhajan Singh, S Sreesanth, Shane Warne, Yuvraj Singh, Brett Lee, Virender Sehwag and Gautam Gambhir.
Exit Modi, exit players
A reliable industry source, denying to be named, says, “After Modi quit office, the BCCI had been acting funny about giving the channel the remaining cricketers and later, even took away the ones that had been given. They’re now pointing to a clause in the players’ contracts, strictly followed by the ICC (International Cricket Council), that prohibits them from doing any activity that risks their life including bungee jumping.”
The source continues, “The ICC rules existed long before the contract was drawn up and signed between the channel and the BCCI. It’s surprising to know the change in plans is being attributed to the ICC rules. They surely didn’t change overnight. The matter is in court and no one knows what happens to all the IPL-entertainment programming that Colors was going to do.”
Sources from BCCI confirm the presence of the clause in the players’ contracts. “Any player representing India at the various domestic and international levels signs the contract with BCCI, under which they are not allowed to risk their lives or even issue media statements without prior permission from the body.
The contracts run into 25-30 pages and the players have to stick to every clause stated because they are internationally followed,” informs the source.
Former cricketer and ex-BCCI office bearer Dilip Vengsarkar refused to comment on the reason the cricketers had been pulled off the show: “It’s not for me to say whether the clause existed earlier or it was just introduced. I didn’t know about such a clause earlier. So, I can’t say much.”
The show has been through much turbulence, given the hassles it has already gone through even before it rolls in Brazil. Endemol spokesperson says, “We were thrilled that the show was expected to rope in cricketers. But with whatever is happening at BCCI and also at the IPL front, there have to be changes in the show, though the basic premise doesn’t change.”
—Agencies