MUMBAI: What if you were standing in a queue and suddenly discovered that the person standing next to you is your favourite celebrity or hero? Will you be starry-eyed, nervous or excited? That’s exactly how people assembled at the Sourav Ganguly Cricket Academy in Kolkata on 15 May felt. After all, they had the Bengal Tiger himself standing amidst them, but they stood there, none the wiser.
Leading pizza chain, Pizza Hut, recently curated a massive surprise experience in the Kolkata, in a creative collaboration with Rannvijay Singha and Sourav Ganguly.
A social media campaign titled ‘Cricket with Rannvijay’ called out to cricket fans and the youth of Kolkata challenging them to play better than Rannvijay and get an opportunity to enjoy Pizza Hut pan pizzas with him. But the fun did not end there.
The video shows how the unsuspecting crowd was electrified with excitement as they realise that they ended up casually playing cricket with cricketer Sourav Ganguly.
The video begins with Rannvijay Singh engaging people from the audience by inviting them to beat his score. He assigns the crowd with the power to decide the score every time someone bats, including himself. After a few friendly shots, Ranvijay adds some delicious pizza fun to the cricket fever on the ground. He pulls out his mobile phone, goes on Pizza Hut’s m-site and within minutes, orders Pizza Hut signature pan pizzas for everyone. Hearing this, the crowd begins to cheer and hoot in anticipation of the delicious pizzas. The excitement changes pace when the pizza delivery boys (more so one of them in specific) start commenting on the people batting and how they could improve their game to which Rannvijay counters and challenges one of the delivery boys to play.
This delivery boy begins playing a right-handed game. A few unimpressive attempts later, he changes his stance to one that would be very familiar to the eye of a true cricket buff. And behold, then begins a barrage of 4s and 6s leaving the crowd stunned. His superb batting skill draws massive cheers from the onlooking crowd, including Rannvijay. Ranvijay moves forward to take a selfie with the Pizza Hut delivery boy who stunned everyone with his left-handed batting skills.
The delivery boy smirks and peels off his (prosthetic) nose, and starts getting rid of his make-up. And lo and behold, the delivery boy was none other than ‘Dada’, the Bengal Tiger himself - Sourav Ganguly.
The crowd and players, naturally, are beside themselves with excitement, thronging against the nets to catch a glimpse of Ganguly, vying to take selfies with their hero, and delighted that some of them actually played with him. Ganguly then mingles with his fans before leaving the venue on a happy note, to cheers of ‘Dada’.
