“I took eight months off from movies, it suddenly became 18” – Preity Zinta

So how much does she know now? “When I got into cricket, I only knew what fours and sixers were. Today, I know what a shorter ball, Read More">good length delivery or a yorker is. This I learnt on my own.” On her own? “When I got into the movies I didn’t go to film school.”Read More

So how much does she know now? "When I got into cricket, I only knew what fours and sixers were. Today, I know what a shorter ball, good length delivery or a yorker is. This I learnt on my own." On her own? "When I got into the movies I didn't go to film school." She continues. "It's been incredible how far I've managed to come on my own by just watching the game. I didn't think I would fall in love with cricket so much," she says and pauses, distracted by a Sachin Tendulkar boundary on the television.

The clock is ticking and it's time for her to begin the process of looking glamorous, but Zinta cannot peel her eyes off the telly. "He is a legend," she says, holding her breath. "When the IPL began all I wanted as an owner was Tendulkar in my team. But they told me it was not possible."

She's put in the hard yards for this role. Zinta went to Harvard to study the complexities behind a business... "I studied negotiations, deal making, mergers, and acquisitions as part of a business course. I didn't do sports management, but I did present the IPL as one of my case studies. I think knowledge is the key and the course did help to some extent. "Harvard taught me to think big. But to think business in India, nobody can teach you. In India you got to think desi, things work differently," she says. The screws have turned since the beginning, but Zinta recalls the difficult times. "What I felt intimidated about was that I was the only woman then (these days there are a few more), and the actress tag became a handicap. I felt I didn't have to be a glamour doll or pout and pose and do my make-up to be accepted."

It's 7 pm - late, already - and the pre-match entertainment has already begun. She might make it just in time for the game. The foyer is a circus trying to get autographs, sound bytes or just a photograph. She wades past the crowd through to the front into a waiting car, and the entire process moves without discomfort, throwing caution to both the delay and the wind.

Stress, and more stress, is always there before and after a game. Like the incident where Harbhajan Singh (of the Mumbai Indians) slapped Sreesanth (from her Kings XI Punjab). That got her a little twitchy, but nothing eradicated the sense of security in her newest profession. "Even when something goes wrong, I smile and sign pieces of paper. A typical day in my life during the IPL is controversy management. In the middle of everything, the temple priest comes with prasad to give to the boys. If I can get to sneak to the gym after all this, it is great. Then I go to the stadium and can barely hear or see anything, like a horse with blinders on. I care too much. Come on, we're Punjab, the most glamorous, aggressive and colourful team in this tournament," she says. Five minutes before the start, Zinta is on the ground and takes her place next to the players in the dug-out - her domain for the next three hours. Smiles erupt from her men in uniform - some coy, some star-struck, all of them comfortable. But whatever happens from here on, she knows it's just a game.

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IPL-3 is in full swing. Preity Zinta and Shilpa Shetty, movie actors and co-owners of, respectively, Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals, are managing cricketers and a cricket franchise. How does that work? Our reporters spent time with both, on and off the field, to find out Preity Zinta (Kings XI Punjab) These, then, Read More">areRead More

IPL-3 is in full swing. Preity Zinta and Shilpa Shetty, movie actors and co-owners of, respectively, Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals, are managing cricketers and a cricket franchise. How does that work? Our reporters spent time with both, on and off the field, to find out

Preity Zinta (Kings XI Punjab)

These, then, are the remains of the day. It's a minute past midnight, March 14, Sunday morning. The plastic dug-out feels lethargic. The match is over: the Delhi Daredevils have thrashed Kings XI Punjab by five wickets at the PCA Stadium in Mohali - at home. Through all the silence, a cheering owner tries to soften the blow. Dressed in the team's colours with the logo stitched alongside, Preity Zinta, actor and co-owner of the IPL team, is at peace. Games are won, and sometimes lost. "When there is a major crisis, I'm the calmest person on the planet. I thrive in chaos. We're one big family and we will solve it," she says. Three hours of trying to inspire her team didn't.

She isn't one to give up though; clapping and cheering by the dug-out is part of the itinerary of ownership. During the post-match presentation ceremony, as part of the ensemble of dignitaries, she's often seen texting away furiously. She instinctively seems to know each time the camera pans to her and, unfazed in front of 40,000 spectators at the ground, and a few million on television, she breaks into her smiling and waving routine. The IPL may have found an emotional connect with the common man but Zinta is both interested and distanced. "It was during the first season against the Chennai Super Kings that I learned to lose. It was the highest scoring match of the season and we lost a very close game. I had to earn the respect of the people, my people and my cricketers. When Chennai was nearing victory, fans told me my money was going down the drain. They asked me to walk away from the loss. But I stood there and watched us lose. It was a moment of clarity for me," she says.

The support system, however, worked like clockwork. "When I work with someone, they know everything about me and I know everything about them. I do not have glass walls around me. I was expected to leave the stadium but I didn't. The players came around and thanked me for being there for them," Zinta says, still somewhat upset with this latest loss to Delhi.

The clock reads 2 pm on a Saturday afternoon in Chandigarh, the lazy capital of Punjab. Some hundred-odd men dressed in khaki clothes and turbans loiter around the foyer of a five-star lobby, intervening and frisking every entrant into the area. As time passes, the area picks pace, men and women now strolling in with enthusiasm and purpose. A few feet inside, past the security and inside a swanky room, the clock reads 2:15 pm.
But unlike the weekend in Mohali, it's filled with hyper kinetic energy waiting to be turned into its potential form.

For Zinta, it's match day. Cross-legged on the couch and without the make-up associated with her other profession, she watches the first game scheduled for the day - Mumbai Indians vs Rajasthan Royals.

Co-owning the Kings XI Punjab for the last two years - and entering its third edition - has seen her give up her acting career for large gaps. Offers for a role from the film industry have come (and have been rejected, she says), but Zinta's focus on her current job is a fixation.

"Initially, I took eight months off from the movies, it suddenly became 18. It was important for me to stay here and learn everything from scratch about the game," she says.

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What unnerved her a little were the questions after Pakistani cricketers didn’t get picked at the auctions. “It was uncomfortable when we were questioned about a business decision. And it could have hampered the whole tournament, Read More">” she says. She wasn’t a complete cricket dummy before Rajasthan Royals. “My father was a huge cricket fan. HeRead More

What unnerved her a little were the questions after Pakistani cricketers didn't get picked at the auctions. "It was uncomfortable when we were questioned about a business decision. And it could have hampered the whole tournament," she says.

She wasn't a complete cricket dummy before Rajasthan Royals. "My father was a huge cricket fan. He loved Viv Richards. We had only one TV in the hall, and Dad monopolised it. I began watching cricket because it would be the only thing on TV when matches were on," she says.

She is now married into football-madness and her insights into IPL come from a direct comparison with the English Premier League, something the London-born Kundra has followed intently. "The way it is structured, it won't take time for local loyalties to take root, or even for hooliganism to pick up," she says.

Kundra lets his charismatic wife shine in the limelight. "For me, it's just another business. She's very emotionally attached to the team. She'll rush to injured players and ask if they need a bandage like it happened when Kamran twisted his shin last year. She's more the mother to the team," says Kundra. Complete with the grit and the tears. "When we lost to KKR last year, I went into the locker-room, put up a brave front and told them better luck next time. And I came out and burst out crying," she says.

Remind her that the Royals were impregnable in IPL 1; she spits thrice to ward off "ill-luck". "I had a black Persian cat all my life, so I was never superstitious. But now I am," she says. Her strange pre-match enforcement: Everyone has to sit with their legs crossed while watching the match.

Shetty knows the next two months will be demanding - she will be travelling with the team for every game. She says she expects spells of disappointment, ecstasy, boredom and exhaustion, in equal parts. And she'll tan four shades deep if she keeps out in the sun, she reckons.

What about movies? She watched My Name Is Khan with Kundra recently. She mixes with the film folk often, but has come a long way from being known as the Chura ke dil mera-glamour girl. Her first co-star is now a rival on the cricket field. "Shah Rukh (Khan)'s a self-made man. He's seen me grow in this industry and I'll always respect him. We both want our teams to win, but there's no animosity," she says, bearing no grudges. Not even for being flung from the top of a building, on screen, in Baazigar.
She happily discusses eye-candy with Kundra -Shaun Tait's cute, Smith young and talented, Yusuf fiery and raw and Jhunjhunwala dependable. But cricket's put away at home. "Dinner-table conversations are strictly about dinner. And then tomorrow's dinner. Raj is a Punjabi and you know what food means to them," she says with a laugh.

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Shilpa Shetty, (Rajasthan Royals) She deftly goes down on her right knee, elbow pointed at right angles, and comes down in one swoop upon the ground…No, Read More">Shilpa Shetty doesn’t proceed to play the classic sweep shot. The actor has a shovel in hand and is planting a sapling as part of a promotion for theRead More

Shilpa Shetty, (Rajasthan Royals)

She deftly goes down on her right knee, elbow pointed at right angles, and comes down in one swoop upon the ground…No, Shilpa Shetty doesn't proceed to play the classic sweep shot. The actor has a shovel in hand and is planting a sapling as part of a promotion for the IPL team she co-owns, Rajasthan Royals. The shutterbugs ask her to smile. She chuckles and pastes on a grin that stays on her face for the next half-hour while Captain Shane Warne and other foreign players turn tomato red under the 2 pm Jaipur sun.

If she's tired by the multiple demands of being co-owner of the IPL franchise, none of it shows. She has flown in after a restaurant launch in London with husband Raj Kundra. Hair tossed back expertly in filmi slow motion, Shetty makes a "heroine entry" at the cricket practice facility at Sawai Man Singh stadium.

Looking glamorous is only the start of her work-sked. "I've become part-time interior-decorator, part-time clothes designer, and I'm a model in the morning, smiling away," she says. As the head of the marketing and merchandise arm of Rajasthan Royals, she is excited about the new mini-trumpet tutaari for team mascot Moochhoo Singh and a high-end Mumbai club with a Rajasthan Royals theme.

But the actress has come to Jaipur with the sole intention of meeting the young first-timers on the team she bought last year. They could be the scariest bowlers and the biggest hitters on the field, but face-to-face with Shetty, they are star-struck. "We initially didn't know what to say, but she just starts talking and speaks much more to junior players and makes them feel very comfortable," says a newbie with the team. Not much of a film buff, Royals' mega-hitter Yusuf Pathan was curious about what he would say to the actress when they first met last year. "The first time she didn't speak much about cricket, but now she knows everything about us. She'd come and told me had I batted on longer in our opening match, we'd have won easily. You know when she speaks, it's not a fluke," says the 37-ball centurion. The encouragement isn't restricted to IPL. "I got 'gr8 innings' messages from her even when I did well in Duleep Trophy and played a winning knock in Ranji (Trophy) one-dayers at Baroda. It's good to know they follow our cricket all year," he says.

Shetty says that when the Royals acquired Shaun Tait at the auction earlier this year, she'd raised the pointer-torch on instructions from team planners and Warne. Almost expecting to be quizzed on her cricketing knowledge, she says, "I've made some faux pas at the beginning, but I love watching the game. And I took pains to learn more about it. I don't have the patience for longer versions, but T20 fits into my scheme of things," she says.

She's happy lending glamour to the team and dancing in music videos, besides adding Rs.75 crore to the kitty. "I was in shock when Raj suggested the idea. But it was destiny. We were at a party and casually asked about how to go about owning a team. And in 30 days, the deal was signed. It's hard-earned money. There's the glamour, but I bring in the edge with marketing and merchandising," she says.

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