You may have noticed that SM covered an upstart, professional cricket league’s launch last year. It was the brash, confident, cheerleader-laden counterpart to the then ephemeral IPL (which even then boasted an incredible array of current and former international players) Well, it’s finally time for the BCCI and ICC approved version to commence it’s own charge at the most amazingly cricket-mad market in the world.
First, the bare facts:
Vijay Mallya’s UB group (Bangalore, 111.6 million).India Cements (Chennai, 91 million)
GMR group (Delhi 84 million)
Deccan Chronicle (Hyderabad, 107 million)
a consortium led by Emerging Media(Manoj Badale, Lachlan Murdoch and investors) (Jaipur, 67 million)
Shah Rukh Khan’s Red Chillies Entertainment (Kolkata, 75.09 million)
Preity Zinta, Ness Wadia(Bombay Dyeing), Karan Paul & Priya Paul(Apeejay Surendera Group) and Dabur’s Mohit Burman (Mohali, 76 million) and
Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Limited (Mumbai, 111.9 million)
All that we know, at present, are the owners and the likely competitors. What we don’t know is whether it will achieve the kind of balance between hometown talent and international stars to achieve lasting appeal—qualities that the ICL seemed to have exhibited.
I know the mutineer community loves a good name-off/caption-off, so I submit to you the task of naming these franchises. Foul or fair, Bucknor ornor Benson, this might be the beginning of a beautiful thing. I do fear greatly for the teams owned by entities as staid as “India Cement” and it is out of this very genuine concern that I submit the task of naming these franchises to the SM community.
I will offer a reward to the commenter who supplies my favorite team name: a choice of me wearing your favorite national side’s kit for a day, or a video of my best, back-of-the-hand, Muttiah Muralitharan impersonation.
(please note, literary beamers, bouncers, jatz cracker rockers and looping shies at the stumps are enthusiastically encouraged )




