Johannesburg: It was not the historic World Cup cricket showdown where India trounced Pakistan, but Indians in this beautiful city converged at the same Centurion stadium cheering World Cup heroes Zaheer Khan, Mohammad Kaif and Harbhajan Singh who played along with some big names from Bollywood in a charity match.

"This is not as big as World Cup, then we were so packed you couldn't move in the grass, we are here to see the stars," said Jagruti, one of the Indian origin South Africans who arrived on May 15 to catch a glimpse of her favourites stars again, in a charity celebrity match organised as part of the International Indian Film Academy (IIFA)'s fourth "Samsung IIFA Awards 2003" weekend.

The proceeds of the match will go to a fund to help families of technicians and artists like stuntmen who lose their lives or are seriously wounded during film-making.

Three teams led by film stars Venkatesh, Anil Kapoor and Sunil Shetty were on the grass to test their skills, along with cricketers Harbajan Singh, Kaif, Zaheer Khan and Vinod Kambli.

Hundreds of spectators, mostly Indian children and teenagers, screamed as each star from the pitch and reel walked down the stairs into the stadium, calling out for autographs and snaps with them.

The match began in a grand style as Bollywood's own patriarch Amitabh Bachchan tossed the coin for the match between the teams led by Sunil Shetty and Anil Kapoor amidst cheers from the crowd. Shetty, who won the toss, elected to bowl.

Before the beginning of the match, Bachchan wished them all the best and remembered he also did "a little bit of bowling and batting" in younger days.

But the enthusiasm of the crowd was obviously for the stars and not their skills at the crease. Each time a star came in to bat or went out, droves of fans followed them across the railings for autographs.

Salman Khan, who was supposed to lead one of the three teams, did not play, but managed a cameo in style, just by making some five-minute appearance in the balcony while the match was going on, distracting audience attention but obviously having a nice time signing autographs and posing for the shutterbugs.

PTI