Bollywood stars like Ranveer Singh, Parineeti Chopra, Varun Dhawan and Jacqueline Fernandez is all set to light up the stage at the IPL 11 opening ceremony in Mumbai’s Wankhede stadium on April 7.

Meanwhile, the tournament will kickstart with defending champions Mumbai Indians taking Chennai Super Kings.

As reported in TOI, Witchcraft has won the bid to stage the opening ceremony. However, a galaxy of former cricket stars, Bollywood and Indian Inc. will grace the night.

Only Rohit Sharma and MS Dhoni will attend the opening ceremony. The other six captains — Virat Kohli (Royal Challengers Bangalore), Steven Smith (Rajasthan Royals), Gautam Gambler (Delhi Daredevils), R Ashwin (Kings XI), Dinesh Karthik (Kolkata Knight Riders) and David Warner (Hyderabad) will be skipping the event due to logistic reasons.

Sources said that CoA had earlier trimmed the budget of the IPL opening budget from Rs 30 crore to Rs 20 crore. Further, they also objected the unnecessary razzmatazz surrounding the event.

Meanwhile, the CoA had also raised issues as to why BCCI should spend so much on “entertainment” when cricket is the main attraction of the event. Also, this year will see only one, unlike the last edition.