Bollywood connection of sports stars

So what happens when the two meet? Sparks fly! There’s chemistry for everyone to see. And this is not a new-age phenomena. The earliest Bollywood-cricket link that most people remember is that of Sharmila Tagore and Mansoor Ali Khan Pataudi, Nawab of Pataudi who was also the captain of the Indian cricket team. The romance between the two bloomed and the two have been happily married for many years. Anju Mahendru was linked to Sir Gary Sobers. The two even got engaged for brief period, but the engagement was called off. Pakistani cricketer Imran Khan had been linked to actress Zeenat Aman.

While some romances were for everyone to see, some have just been in the shadow of rumours. Ravi Shastri was rumoured to be seeing Amrita Singh. Reena Roy tied the knot with Pakistani cricketer Mohsin Khan when she was at the peak of her career in 1983. She quit movies and tried to be a homemaker. However, the marriage didn’t last long. The actress got a divorce and came back to India with her daughter. Neena Gupta too had an unconventional relationship with Sir Vivian Richards. Neena’s child from their relationship was born and brought up in India, while Richards went back to his homeland.

Some much-married cricketers, too, couldn’t help but fall for the glam gals. Manoj Prabhakar was linked to Farheen. He eventually divorced his first wife Sandhya and married Farheen. Similar fate was in store for former Indian team captain Mohammad Azharuddin. He was liked to Sangeeta Bijlani, who had then broken up with Salman Khan.

After a brief spell of silence, the rumour mills were buzzing with stories of Prince of Bengal Sourav Ganguly falling for Nagma. The affair became common knowledge and even had people in the spectators teasing Sourav about the same when a game would be on. However, the skipper chose to end his romance and go back to wife Dona.

Mahima Chaudhary too had a long relationship with a sportsman. however, she didn’t fall for a cricketer, but the actress was seeing tennis star Leander Paes. this relationship too ended with a heatbreak. Leander is now married to model Rhea Pillai, while Mahima is married to architect Bobby Mukherjee.

Recently, Mahesh Bhupati and Lara Dutta were said to be on the romance rack. However, Lara has denied the rumour. Another tennis star’s heart was said to have strayed into Bollywood. It’s the Shahid Kapoor-Sania Mirza link up, we are talking about. Both claimed to be ‘good friends’. The dosti became quite thandi when Shahid was later linked to Priyanka Chopra. Sania is now engaged to businessman Mohammed Sohrab Mirza. But it was Bipasha Basu’s pic with soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo that had the gossip mills working overtime. But that link-up too died pretty quickly. Amrita Arora was in a brief relationship with British cricketer Usman Afzal.

The cricketing world now had new faces. These guys are single and available. The first link-up among the newbies was that of actor Yuvraj Singh and starlet Kim Sharma that had many young girls sighing in disappointment. And though it was captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni who’s said to have invited Deepika Padukone to watch a cricket match, it was vice captain Yuvraj who was later spotted with the Bollywood babe. Deepika, however, soon began dating Ranbir Kapoor. But Yuvi’s link-ups with actresses don’t end here. The good-looking cricketer was also linked to Preity Zinta during the first season of IPL. Zaheer Khan was bowled over by Isha Sharwani, while Sreesanth has been lined to glam gals like Shonali Nagrani, Surveen Chawla and Daisy Bonappa. Captain Dhoni, too, has been linked to Southern actress Laxmi Rai, who went on to deny the relationship. The match between Bollywood and sports icon continues, and whoever wins, nobody loses this love game.