Manchester United of IPL: Kolkata Knight Riders and some reasons why I like it

The Manchester United of IPL: The Kolkata Knight Riders:
My allegiance hasn’t changed and I still love the Mumbai Indians. But if you look at their team composition of KKR (Kolkata Knight Riders) which is somehow weak on paper and their performance last year you may not have a world beating team. Nor would you expect them to challenge the Mumbai Indians ,Bangalore Royal Challengers ,Delhi Daredevils who seem to be my pick for the season as favorites after the first round of the IPL2.
But if ever you wanted to look at the euphoria or the pre-match buzz generated by any team in terms of promotion, marketing glitz and having the ability to be in the news its KKR.Be it the multi-captaincy row involving John Buchanan and Sourav Ganguly which seemed to be a played up phenomenon so as to gradually break the news that Sourav Ganguly the prince of Kolkata was not going to be captaining Kolkata Knight Riders. What their performance over the last couple of years also taught was though the essence of the team and local flavor was important ,performance in the game is a key metric of success and with so much money at stake tough decisions would be taken.
Or the reality TV Show on Knights and Angels the hunt for cheerleaders for KKR on NDTV Imagine SRK managed to get the new cricket viewer the Indian Female/Women into the game. I guess I know why STAR Tv has signed on to support the KKR.Now being a little cheesy going by their performance in the first match there doesn’t seem to be much cheering for them to do.I guess a reality TV Show to select the best cricketing talent would be a better bet next year.
However I salute the marketing acumen of Shahrukh Khan who is really witty with his words and has so brilliantly capitalized upon his global popularity and rubbed it upon his team.So even though Andrew Flintoff may be worth 1.54 million as the most expensive player while leading the charge brigade in capetown,SRK Stole all thunder.
If there was a Manchester United of Cricket its already Kolkata Knight Riders. With brands like Nokia,Tag Hueur Reebok and Sprite and one of the coolest looking jerseys in black and golden apart from the delhi daredevils who look ubercool in Blue and Red they seem to have euphoria going for them. With the only team having a tiger mascot for them and a catchy jingle Korbo Korbo Jeetbo le ,compared to say Chennai Super Kings whose Hindi song may not be even understood in Chennai,the team has it all.
There is a case in point where allocating Shahrukh Khan an IPL Team for abroad called London NRI’s Eleven, Durbans Indian Riders or Aussie Indo Juggernaut would have created even more global euphoria and sponshorship for his team,simply going by the euphoric popularity SRK has abroad.I was watching this interview on NDTV where the sports anchor Sonali chander quipped why does the Reebok KKR jersey Khan 12 sell more than any other jersey in IPL even though it was of SRK an actor and owner of a team rather than say a Sachin Tendulkar or Mahindra Singh Dhoni.Well the answer is unanimous SRK the brand is much bigger than KKR the team.
His sense of humour is at its best when he was asked with Shipla Shetty and Priety Zinta in South Africa don’t you think most guys would be interested in watching the two beauties to which he replied I don’t know about the others but the two would be watching only me.
Also as acknowledged by SRK himself his team may have everything from Dada to controversies,from brands like STAR Plus to sprite what’s lacking is a good middle order batsmen like Ricky Ponting .Akash Chopra seems like a misfit and they seem to have a long tail.They could so very well do with a Jacob Oram or an allrounder who could bat really well and bowl.
Till then lets leave you with all the Kings men and his wit.