There is something very Rajinikanth-esque about Mahendra Singh Dhoni. The humble beginnings and rustic style aside, the two share a common love for the city of Chennai.
With the Chennai Super Kings returning to the latest edition of the Indian Premier League on 7 April 2018, after a span of two years, the team's latest ad features two of the city's biggest heroes - Rajinikanth and Dhoni. The mash-up gets cricketers Harbhajan Singh, Dwayne Bravo and MS Dhoni mouthing the lines to the teaser of Rajinikanth's upcoming Kaala (2018).
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The teaser begins with Harbhajan Singh mouthing Nana Patekar's dialogue from the teaser, 'Kaala, Kaisa naam hai re?' (Kaala, what kind of name is that?) It is left to Murali Vijay and Dwayne Bravo to provide a short explanation as to what the name signifies, before the big man makes his entry.
Standing with his back to a massive arena of fans with a banner of his face in the crowd, Dhoni swaggers through Rajinikanth's dialogues saying 'Kya re? Setting ah?'
The line has caught on among fans, and will certainly earn Dhoni his fair share of applause. The cricketer enjoys a massive fan following in Chennai for his winning stint with the home team. It seems almost apt that the makers of the ad have chosen Rajinikanth's lines for this mash-up.
Rajinikanth's Kaala may not be released on April 27 after all
This is not the first time Dhoni has been equated with the superstar. A couple of weeks after the release of Kaala's teaser, a fan-made video went viral for a similar idea. While the official CSK ad features a bit of Pa Ranjith's film teaser, the fan-made one went the whole nine yards with the Tamil dialogues. There was even the addition of cricketer Kapil Dev and actress Priyanka Chopra making appearances.
Pa Ranjith's Kaala (2018) is currently held up due to the ongoing strike of the Tamil Film Producers' Corporation. The film was scheduled to release on 27 April. Besides Rajinikanth, the film stars Nana Patekar, Huma Qureshi, Anjali Patil, Pankaj Tripathi among others.