The Great Indian Cricket Tamasha

BCCI’s very own marketing guru Lalit Modi, in an interview, recently talked about an inter-city cricket league along the lines of the Uefa Champions League. Creating franchises and attracting the best players. Personally I don’t have anything against the idea inspite of the fact that it is nothing but a money spinning gimmick. But that’s for another day. Inter-city leagues and franchises have been around in European football and American sports for donkey’s years.

In the interview he mentioned two franchises, Delhi Panthers and Mumbai Stallions. I have nothing against the animal kingdom but names like these just don’t make any sense at all. The Pakistanis tried something similar sometime back. My flatmate was baffled and in splits when I told him his home team the Rams was playing the Zebras. That was until ofcourse I told him it was Rawalpindi versus Karachi. I am sure Mumbai-ites and Delhi-ites would have been equally amused and confused if you told them that the Panthers were playing the Stallions.

If you know your basketball, when I say Bulls vs Lakers, only one thing comes to mind, Chicago are playing Los Angeles. We need a similar reaction if I say Panthers are playing the Stallions to capture the publics imagination. So I thought I would try and brainstorm some franchise names that would be easily identifiable and avoid incurring the wrath of the animal kingdom for being associated for places they don’t know about. So here goes. Let me admit beforehand that I will be indulging in some cultural stereotyping, so you’ve been warned.

Starting with Mumbai, first thing that comes to mind is Bollywood, Sensex, city of dreams etc. So we have the Mumbai Philmi’s!! Talk films and its Mumbai. People can easily recognize the city. So you get the drift now.

Moving onto Gujarat, I think of food and dandia. So we have the Ahmedabad Dhoklas and Vadodara Dandias. Ok I can’t spell any more Gujarati snack food so I settled for dhokla and it’s the one I prefer.

Going down south, Bangalore, the city of IT and outsourcing, We have the Bangalore BPO’s. Chennai, the land of masala dosa and idli (I could be wrong here). And we have the Chennai Sambars. Kerala, the land of backwaters, sand and coconut trees. Thus, the Kochi Kanals. Hyderabad, I know it’s the new IT city but Bangalore was first, is nawabs and biryanis. So theres the Hyderabad Nawabs.

And from the north we have Delhi. It doesn’t bring much to mind except for the fact that it’s our capital full of starched white kurta-clad politicians. So we have the Delhi Capitals. From Bengal we have the Kolkata Kommunists (with a K) since they seem to be flavour of the political season there. And they could do with some good PR in the rest of the country. Who says cricket and politics cannot mix.

Jaipur brings to mind camels, sand, forts and ofcourse the kings. Jaipur Maharajas!!

Moving to the state of Punjab, theres the highly clichéd Sher-e-*. That honour goes to Sher-e-Jalandhar. Punjab also brings to mind bhangra, lassi, butter chicken and last but not least, our truck driving brethren. They never fail to remind us to ‘Please use dipper at night’ from the back of their trucks. So in keeping with Chandigarh’s more up-market and urban image we have the Chandigarh Dippers.

Bihar’s most famous export is Laloo Prasad Yadav, so in recognition of the attention he has bought to the state of Bihar, we have the Patna Yadavs.

So now when we hear Kommunists vs Sambars we instantly know its Kolkata playing Chennai rather than being confused and wondering why species of the animal kingdom are indulging in the gentleman’s game. Not only do the people now recognizing the teams but they are part of it through there cultural, and in some cases political, nuances.

Since there are no points for originality, the whole gimmick can be called the BCCI Champions League.


P.S. In true BCCI spirit, I hereby own all intellectual property over these franchise names and stand to benefit financially if they happen to be implemented in any shape or form!! :-p.