IPL8 opening ceremony: Damp show by Anushka, Shahid, Farhan

Fireworks during the Pepsi IPL 2015 opening night event held at the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata, India on the 7th April 2015. (Supplied)

Captain from all IPL team with IPL Trophy during the Pepsi IPL 2015 opening night event held at the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata, India on the 7th April 2015. (Supplied)

Published Wednesday, April 08, 2015

By Ajanta Paul

Disclaimer - it was a Bollywood extravaganza attended by some A-list cricketers.

The cash cow, India Premiere League season 8 kicked off at the decked-up Salt Lake stadium in Kolkata.

Rumbling thunder and rain turned the supposed glittering affair to a drenched ceremony.

As rain dampened the spirit of 'City of Joy', audiences at Salt Lake pinned their hopes on the gala performances lined up.

As it turned out - it was a damp squib, barring Hrithik Roshan's performance.

After a one and a half hour delay the ceremony started with a Rabindra Sangeet rendition of 'Ananda Loke'.

Women wearing traditional Bengali sarees danced to the famous song as music director Pritam started the show.

And the wait began for the host to make an appearance - finally Saif Ali Khan showed up.

The 'Omkara' star called out the captains of the eight franchises as the likes of Shikhar Dhawan, JP Duminy and George Bailey walked onto the dais.

Rohit Sharma clearly didn't know where to stand and messed up big time, thankfully other captains learned from his mistake.

The trio of Dhoni, Kohli and Gambhir received the biggest applause as firecrackers lit up the Kolkata sky.

It was then cine stars turn to put up a good show.

Shahid Kapoor made an entry on a bike almost took a tumble; he hit a ramp slightly and then slipped on the stage before recovering quickly.

The host, Saif Ali Khan seemed quite lost. Not sure if he forgot all his lines or the teleprompter was not working. It seemed he was repeating whatever was being fed to him through his ear-piece.

It was then time for Anushka Sharma to come on stage and she took all her diva time to make an appearance.

The 'NH10' actress shining bright in her jumpsuit jogged around, performing some aerobics. In between she tripped and looked deranged.

The cameraman in the field were making sure not to show bored faces or audiences yawning.

And of course, they had to fish out Virat Kohli who managed a coy smile. Did anyone blame Virat for Anushka's bad performance?

Moving on - it was time to 'Rock On'. Make some noise says Farhan Akhtar as he and his band took the stage.

Farhan showed his biceps, cool headgear and lot of energy but sorry to say he sounded rather tuneless.

Had the audio system been better in the stadium maybe, his 'Rock On' and 'Senorita' numbers could have sounded better (giving him some grace mark here).

Well, there was one last performance and I hoped it better be good.

Hrithik Roshan lived up to the expectations — the crowd sounded and seemed excited for the first time in the entire evening.

The actor managed to pep up the crowd after some not so impressive performances by the rest.

He gyrated to his hit numbers from 'Bang Bang', 'Dhoom 2' and 'Kaho Na Pyar Hai'.

The wait for Hrithik was clearly worth it. He was the saving grace in this 'Bollywood' glitzy event.

Now that the #MostBoringIPLOpeningCeremony was over, let's hope to have some fun in India's favourite pastime on primetime.