- Nasima Akter
Photo of KGF Star Yash with Cricketers Hardik Pandya and Krunal Goes Viral

A photo posted on cricket star Hardik Pandya’s Instagram has gone viral with over 3 million likes. The photo shows the player posing with his brother and standing in the middle is the famous Kannada actor, Yash.
Yash is a pan-Indian star that gained recognition with the mega success of the KGF film franchise. KGF is an Indian Kannada-language period action film series that was first released in 2018 and recently released its second chapter this year in April. The talented actor won millions of hearts with his exceptional performance as Rocky Bhai, the protagonist in the two-part franchise.
The actor has not announced any plans for his next project, but he has been flooded with offers from both the South Indian film industries as well as Bollywood these days. With the massive success of KGF: Chapter 2, Yash has been keeping a low profile and rarely made public appearances.
According to reports, India captain Hardik Pandya met ‘KGF’ actor Yash on Thursday. Because the cricketer’s post had the caption, “KGF 3″, many fans are speculating on the third installment of the KGF franchise.
Earlier, director Prashanth Neel had revealed that a third installment of the franchise might happen. But the filmmaker added that they have not finalized the story for the third part yet.
What has been confirmed by the filmmakers, is that they are planning to create a Marvel-style franchise of it. In one interview, a producer of the film franchise stated, "Going forward, we are going to create a Marvel kind of universe. We want to bring different characters from different movies and create something like Doctor Strange. The way it happened in Spider-Man Home Coming or Doctor Strange. So that we can reach a wider audience easily".
It was not explained how exactly Hardik met with Yash, but he surprised plenty of cricket and movie fans with the Instagram post.
Before his social media post had gone viral, the BCCI (Board of Control for Cricket in India) had announced that Hardik would be the team’s new T20 Captain. Hardik has also been chosen as the ODI vice-captain in KL Rahul’s place.
The last time that Hardik has named as team captain was when India went to Ireland to play two T20Is, which they won 2-0. He also led India in a T20I series against West Indies and New Zealand, which the team won 4-1 and 1-0 respectively.
Reports say that the reason Hardik got chosen as the captain by the BCCI was because of the rising demand for a captaincy change. Especially since Team India suffered a shocking exit from the T20 World Cup 2022 and Asia Cup in UAE, earlier this year.
India has recently finished a Test Series against Bangladesh with a 2-0 victory. Coming January, they will be having a T20I match against Sri Lanka.
Hardik has been chosen as Rohit Sharma’s backup for the 3-match series against the visiting team despite KL Rahul’s return to the ODI squad. This is because Sharma is still recovering from a thumb injury sustained during the 2nd ODI between India and Bangladesh.