Anushka Sharma, Virat Kohli, Rohit Sharma head-lined the guest-list at the engagement party of the cricketer and actress Sagarika Ghatge in Mumbai
Natasha Coutinho (MUMBAI MIRROR; May 25, 2017)

After whisking ladylove Sagarika Ghatge off to Goa (Mirror, April 25) to pop the question, cricketer Zaheer Khan followed up the proposal with a star-studded yet informal engagement party in Mumbai.

On Tuesday, the couple had cricketers as well as filmi friends in attendance at a SoBo five-star for the celebrations that kicked off at 9 pm and didn’t wind up before 4 am, when the guests started filing out of the venue.

Anushka Sharma and skipper beau Virat Kohli, coordinated in monochrome, walked in hand-in-hand, while fellow teammate Rohit Sharma arrived with wife Ritika Sajdeh. Raveena Tandon, accompanied by film distributor husband Anil Thadani, made a brief appearance of about 15 minutes, and Yuvraj Singh, who had arrived solo, hung out with actor-friend Angad Bedi. Also flying solo for the night was Bobby Deol, while Arshad Warsi was with wife Maria Goretti, who stood out in her white shirt-sweeping skirt combo by her favourite designer, Mayyur Girotra. Also representing the Men In Blue was Sachin Tendulkar, with wife Anjali and actress-TV presenter Mandira Bedi, grabbing the spotlight in a ruched bodycon number. Kai Po Che! director Abhishek Kapoor turned up with model-actress wife Pragya Yadav.

“I’d proposed to Sagarika while IPL was on and we were just waiting for it to get over so we could celebrate with friends. It was an impromptu plan but I knew I had to do this at some stage, before I focus on other things at hand. It was a chilled out evening as the basic idea was to get together with friends and catch up, while also officially announce the engagement. There’s still time for the wedding and we haven’t decided on the date yet,” Zaheer told Mirror.

Meanwhile, bride-to-be Sagarika had clearly internalised the memo, opting for a “comfortable” gown (a chartruse Monisha Jaising) as there would be “no dancing; only sitting around with friends.” “Zaheer and his friends had been busy with the IPL so we hadn’t found time to celebrate. Now that he’s free, we will sit and fix a date for the wedding,” she said.