Indian Cricketers Refused To Act In Akshay Kumar's Movie

Akshay Kumar's Patiala House will be shot at London's Oval and Lord's Ground and Trent Bridge in Nottingham. It is the first Bollywood film ever to be granted permission for shooting over there.

The film Patiala House, directed by Nikhil Advani will release in Diwalia 2010 to clash with the releases of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows and Sanjay Leela Bhansali's Guzaarish. The movie is set entirely in London and revolves around a generation conflict within an immigrant Punjabi family that resides in Patiala House in Southall. Akshay's character Gattu wants to be a bowler for the England cricket team even though his family opposes the idea.

There are two test matches in the film and it was not difficult getting permission because only a few permits had to be in order. Bhushan Kumar of T-Series applied for the permissions 4-5 months ago.

A source reveals that 12 professional cricketers will make an appearance in the film. They include Andrew Symonds, Dirk Nannes, and Simon Katich from Australia, Nasser Hussain, Graeme Hick, Alex Tudor, and Graham Gooch from England and Pakistan's Kamran Akmal, among others. Commentators Alan Wilkins, Sanjay Manjrekar and Nikhil Chopra will also be part of it.

Bhushan Kumar said, "We wanted the scene to have an authentic feel so we roped in the cricketers and decided to shoot on those grounds. We had get permission from the Cricket Boards. Sadly, MS Dhoni and Yuvraj Singh could not get permission from the BCCI."