Kings, Lions and Tigers.

Come ON! Kolkata Knight Riders?! Surely, one could expect someone with abundance of creativity as SRK to come up with something better. But conversely, SRK came up with what sounds like the most senseless name there is in the IPL. Knight-Riders. One could make certain juvenile sense out of "night-riders"(ref: to Nikhil who'd call his fantasy team that, to which i agree), but the name "Knight"-riders makes me think of dirty things. :). Knights ride horses already! So who rides on them Knights then?


But its a sad trend altogether. Ever since the launch of the PHL,(we seem to have forgotten in this recent IPL excitement, hence i feel the need to remind. Premier Hockey League.) there have been a slew of clubs, with a slew of names that reiterated their teams' association and correlation with Lions and Tigers. Lions and Tigers. Not just in English, but also in Hindi.(to preserve the novelty of their names, perhaps?) They are on their names, crests everything. Sure, they represent bullish creatures, but they are not the only bullies in the vast forests. The only team that has, thankfully, jumped off this bandwagon is the Deccan Chargers, with their Bull crest. It is quite a refreshing change. And quite an awesome team too.


But overall, i must say that the IPL has come up with more innovative names than Indians have ever before. I like the name Royal Challengers. It is symbolic of Vijay Mallya's deadly creativity and dashing nature to go out and name his team after his alcohol, ooops, "packaged drinking water" brand. I even like Deccan Chargers. It is, admittedly a little obscure,(made me think of mobile chargers at first), but it kinda sounds cool and wonderfully inventive. But otherwise, Chennai "Super Kings" sounds just meaningless as does "Kings XI Punjab". "Kings XI Punjab". That is another silly name. It sounds like the suffix "Punjab" was added just to make sure people know where the team is located. You know, the presence of Pathan, Lee, Sreesanth and Sangakkara is quite misleading. (one observation: The fact that theses teams are called "kings" or "royal", i guess are, exemplary of the amount of money in the IPL. Only the SUPER-est kings could cough up so much for MS Dhoni :D). Delhi Daredevils sounds fine. I guess one can surely envisage someone like Sehwag with the "Daredevil" tag. Goes with their mascot(Akshay Kumar) too.


My point is, that when you name a team, it should say something about the team or the host location. For example, Chennai Super Kings hardly says anything about Chennai, its people or even its team. It only suggests that the owner is quite a "king", that too a super one in his own right. I'd like it if teams were called something that the people could identify with. Call me biased, but I LOVE the name Mumbai Indians. It says about Bombay that it really belongs to no one in particular(quite an opposed thought to what many influentials in Bombay are declined to believe :D). But yes, Bombay really doesn't have such a strong and old indigenous culture. Whatever culture exists is a conglomeration of the variety of people that reside there. Indians, that reside there. They have made a unique culture for themselves. I love the ad too, which shows the helpfulness and omnipresence of the Mumbaikar. If only Ambani got us a better team :((...



Given my way, I'd call the teams after their cuisines. I know it'd sound quite peurile, but think!


Mumbai Wadapavs!