Stars shine at Dhoni's London charitable party

The ‘East meets West’ charity initiative by the Mahendra Singh Dhoni Charitable Foundation here recently was a big draw.

According to information trickling down from the India captain’s camp, a host of business tycoons besides dozens of cricketers — current and past — turned up for the event that was organised at a posh London hotel.

The entire Indian team showed up for the event, but surprisingly, quite a few former players from the West Indies, England and Australia were also present. Brian Lara was one of the star attractions. The batting legend and former West Indies skipper came to the function with his one-time teammate, captain and fast bowling great Courtney Walsh.

Although the current English players did not make it to the charity sit-in, Alec Stewart, the former England skipper and wicketkeeper, attended it.

He was seen chatting with David Boon, the explosive former Australia opener. Former India wicketkeeper Farokh Engineer, too, was there. Sachin Tendulkar made a brief visit to the gala dinner, which was attended by about 900 people.

From the business world, conspicuous by his presence was Lakshmi Mittal, the richest man in the UK. The steel tycoon is the second richest man in the whole of Europe and also No 6 in the world. Then, there were members from the Aditya Birla Group.

Rajashree Birla, Neerja Birla and Askaran Agarwala, of Hindalco Industries, sat through the evening even as Siddharth Mallya made his presence felt by interacting with the players. From the corporate world, former heads of HDFC Bank and Citibank were present as was HDFC chairman Deepak Parekh. Abhijeet Sarkar represented the Sahara Group.

From the world of entertainment, Bollywood stars Madhavan, Jaqueline Fernandez and Omi Vaidya charmed the audience.
Apart from Dhoni’s bat, the pair of gloves used by him in the final and a ball signed by Muttiah Muralitharan also went under the hammer. A painting by Sacha Jafri attracted the biggest bid.

Besides, John Abraham’s favourite biking jacket and helmet were also sold at the fund-raiser. The original script of 3 Idiots also went under the hammer. The entire cast and crew of the Bollywood blockbuster had signed on the script.

The organisers refused to disclose the amount raised at the function but said the funds will be used for charity work carried out by Dhoni’s foundation. The India skipper wants to run a school and start a cricket academy in the Jharkhand capital. The initiative is being called Winning Ways — Today for Tomorrow.

Dhoni delivered a brief speech and thanked the gathering. He talked about the future plans of the foundation and sought help from people for creating and developing infrastructure in his hometown. Dhoni’s wife, Sakshi, is the chairperson of the foundation.