'I experienced the Dublin traffic' says Bollywood star ahead of new cricket league launch

There really isn’t a way to exaggerate the level of fame we’re talking about here. To describe him and his wife as mere actors would be like calling Taylor Swift as a singer and stopping there.

WELCOME TO DUBLIN: Abhishek Bachchan during a visit to Adamstown Cricket Club in Lucan, Dublin, during his visit to Ireland to promote the European T20 Premier League. Pic: Ramsey Cardy/Sportsfile.

It’s not every day you see a Bollywood star launching an international cricket league in West Dublin.

Abhishek Bachchan could walk down O’Connell Street without most people turning a head. In fact, he did just that on St Patrick’s Day when taking in the parade.

Not in Adamstown, near Lucan, in the west of the city.

This is a star considered Bollywood royalty. His father Amitabh Bachchan may well be ‘Mr Bollywood’, his mother Jaya is another famous actor, and Abhishek is married to Aishwarya Rai, a former Miss World who has established herself as a famous … actor.

The man himself has starred in a rake of movies, not least the spectacularly successful Dhoom series. Among his many and varied other interests are ownership stakes in a range of sports teams, including in football and Kabbadi.

There really isn’t a way to exaggerate the level of fame we’re talking about here. To describe them as mere actors would be like calling Taylor Swift as a singer and stopping there. We are talking household names here, cultural icons.

Now Abhishek is a key investor in a new European T20 cricket league, the ETPL, which will feature six teams from Ireland, Scotland and the Netherlands to be held this summer. This is why he was causing such a stir in the capital on a random midweek afternoon.

Adamstown has a significant Indian population. Some have even moved there from other parts of Dublin having been drawn in by the local and eponymous Adamstown Cricket Club that is already the largest in the country having been founded only 16 years ago.

News that Bachchan was visiting sent a jolt of electricity through the community and hundreds gathered at the club’s Airlie Park ground to welcome the celebrity and, for the lucky few, to have their photo taken with him.

His late arrival only added to the anticipation.

“I experienced the Dublin traffic,” he smiled, having finally made it through the adoring throng and into the temporary haven that was The Tram Café where there was a small reception and speeches.

Bachchan was the coolest, calmest person there. His smile and manners never wavered, he said all the right things and made all the right gestures and every step saw a wave of people follow in his wake like a flock of birds.

“I watched Dhoom again last week,” one excited onlooker told him.

When his visit was done and he had met some of the local youth players and took possession of an Ireland cricket jersey presented to him in the café, thoughts turned to how they would get him back to the car park through the crowd.

Local gardaí and security formatted a route and a plan with the local cricket officials and as he left he did so through another thicket of arms raised aloft and bearing mobile phones and people beaming smiles of pure joy and excitement.

Dublin had never seen anything like it.