Watch IPL 2015 Opening Ceremony Live Online: Cricket Gala Features Bollywood Glamor, Streaming Video
Cricket fanatics can watch the splashy, Olympic-style opening ceremony for the 2015 IPL live online to catch a glimpse of India’s most glamorous event, bringing together the cricket-crazy country’s biggest stars of the sport together with the glamor of Bollywood’s most sought-after celebrities.
Details on how to watch the spectacular Indian Premier League 2015 Opening Ceremony live online from the Salt Lake Stadium in Kolkata, India, Tuesday can be found below.
The eighth edition of the Indian Premier League, the world’s most popular and lucrative T20 professional cricket tournament, starts play on Wednesday with defending champions the Kolkata Knight Riders hosting 2013 trophy-winners the Mumbai Knight Riders. The opening ceremony takes place the previous night.
The splashy ceremony, titled Festival of India, is designed specifically to appeal to a global audience, organizers say.
“The content will be in English,” said Chanda Singh, of Encompass Events, the company staging the eye-popping program. “The choreography would be Bollywood style.”
Chanda called the script for the IPL Opening Ceremony “tight and seamless.”
“The hero of the show are the floor projections through which the evolution of IPL will be narrated. It will offer a glimpse into the winning teams, the cricketers and what the league means to people. The camaraderie between cricketers of different countries while playing together in a single team will be in focus.”
An A-list of Bollywood stars — the top celebrities of India’s hugely popular domestic film industry — will be present at the ceremony alongside many of India’s top cricket players, whose celebrity in some cases exceeds that of the movie stars.
India’s most glamorous celebrity couple will be in attendance — India Test side captain Virat Kohli and his girlfriend, Bollywood star and producer Anushka Sharma.
#IPL season can’t begin without its share of glamour! Spotted – #ViratKohli & #AnushkaSharma owning the military look pic.twitter.com/LHRTGoG9rC
— Fashion 101 (@Fashion101in) April 6, 2015
With the tense atmosphere in India, however, security at the Opening Ceremony will be extremely tight — as it will remain for the entire seven-week Indian Premier League season.
“We have made elaborate security arraignments for IPL. Besides deploying security personnel at team hotels, more than 5,000 cops would be stationed in and around the stadium during the matches,” said Kolkata police commissioner Rajiv Mishra.
But the chief worry for the Opening Ceremony is rain, which according to local weather forecasts, could put a damper, literally, on the open-air gala.
Watch the IPL 2015 Opening Ceremony love online via ESPN3, at this link — the online network is free and requires no cable subscription, only a free AT&T account. The festivities start streaming at 10 a.m. United States Eastern Time on April 5.
[Image via Times of India]
