Puma ,Reebok and Adidas are into overdrive merchandizing and selling various franchisee jerseys,caps and many other accessories all across India and abroad. With recession looming and the DLF IPL Shifted out of India the eventual impact of the sale of these merchandizes will be clear only later.
Puma has come up with a great range of clothing for Rajasthan Royals and the two lions holding an ancient Indian horn on a royal blue background in indeed royal. They have come up with some ubercool merchandize like the RR slippers,pullovers and many such accessories at their store.Deccan Chargers has also gone in for a shade of blue with Puma after last year they had a dullish performance in the IPL and an even more dullish ocher and grey jersey.Puma expects the stadium sales to be hit by upto 5 percent. Indian stadiums holding IPL Matches creates that extra urge for the spectators to go and purchase these jerseys which will be missing this year.
Adidas for its part expects a fourfold increase in the sale of IPL merchandize. They have designed jerseys for the Delhi Daredevils. This leading sports brand has come up with a new, fiery red and electric blue fan range for the Delhi Daredevils which is also my best pick of the lot for the season.Mumbai Indians is another team which has got their team wear designed by Adidas. The cool blue and dark blue does look elegant for the Mumbai Indians. They have got 70 percent of their sales from online stores whereby customers are given a chance to customize their merchandize as per their liking and it seems a great POS(Point of Sale) and should do wonders in years to come.
Reebok for its part has made lot of headways already with Khan 12 jersey. The SRK Reebok KKR black and golden jersey is a huge hit already in India and abroad. More surprising part is that SRK wearing the jersey is shown in its advertisements as the captain of KKR where infact he is the co-owner of the team.Brendon Mccullum the actual captain would have made a good pin-up poster too.For the other teams you have Peterson,Mahendra singh dhoni and Yuvraj Singh wearing their respective team jerseys.
The kings eleven Punjab with red and silver ,the Chennai superkings (looks really bad with the gawdy yellow) and the Bangalore royal challengers with a refreshing red looks interesting.
I wonder why none of the teams have chosen the Green Color. A case in point to brand themselves eco-friendly and so to for the IPL today on world earth day.If not the teams jerseys may be the official staff and the support admin could Go Green just to raise awareness about Climate change ,global warming.After all it’s a business organization with such a huge fan base.A case in point for the DLF IPL to take forward after the great initiatives like HEAT and also Miss Bollywood South Africa.
As of today KKR with SRK’s sheer star power ,Delhi Daredevils and Mumbai Indians should sell the most of their merchandize profitably coz of being in the metros with huge population and sheer fan following of Sachin Tendulkar and Virendra Sehwag.Dhoni is huge star infact biggest right now but doesn’t seem to naturally fit into the Chennai Identity apart from the fact that he is captain.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Harsha Bhogles favourite DLF IPL Moment of last year.
Set Max is looking at the entire Indian Family and targetting the middle class Indian Diaspora as its viewer so it is understood they would be having Hinglish for their commentary team.That explains why we have Arun Lal for the prematch analysis.Last years Mano-ranjan advertisement campaign was brilliant.I wonder if they could get it back.
But we do have Sunil Gavaskar,Ravi Shashtri ,surprise surprise even Harsha Bhogle.Simply brilliant ar'nt they.I also think Robin Jackman,Simon Doull and Mark Nicholas are really good commentators on air.I miss Michael Holding,Tony Greg and Geofrey Boycott.Wonder what they are upto.I spotted Geoffrey with Shipla Shetty the other day,which did set lot of eyeballs rolling for the fact that Geoffrey has been such an avid Shilpa shettys supporter.
The Max preview show has a mix of Hindi-english with Arun Lal.Wonder if they could get Navjot Sidhu or Mohinder Amarnath to add a bit more spice to their preview show.Mandira bedi seems to be upto no good.Shonali Nagrani the co-host for Max during the ICC World Cup 2007 was some real good eye candy.I wonder where she is right now.
Harsha Bhogle today was urging SRK to smile while on air with lot of anxiety on his face.His favourite moment for DLF IPL Season 1 was when 80,000 fans were singing along with SRK Korbo Lorbo Jeetbo le in a fully packed ground at Eden Gardens Kolkata.I am sure that is one sight I love to behold specially if you have our beloved Dada Sourav Ganguly coming down the track and hoisting some leftarm spinners for huge sixes over long-on or simply caressing the quickies through the offside of whom hes the God as per Rahul Dravid.
Match 6 :DLF IPL Its the Gayle and McCullum show for KKR.
Match 6 of the DLF IPL:
Kings 11 Punjab had their moments.After loosing an early wicket Irfan Pathan who seems a much better batsmen than bowler did do good for their cause.But KKR kept taking wickets at crucial intervals.
Well you can love him,you can hate him but you cannot ignore the prince of Calcutta.With two wickets in one over and match figures of 4 overs 24 runs for 2 wickets Sourav Ganguly just proved us all wrong when people had started to write him off.
After the 10 overs and into the strategy break Kings 11 Punjab were 67/3 of 10 overs.
After the break Yuvraj Singh played really well with those flamboyant super sixes.His wicket was the most important wicket of the day when you look at the result.With him finding his feet a score of 200 was looming over KKR.
Towards the end of the match it was Mahela Jayawardenas late flurry that got them to a score of 158/6 which seemed power for the course.
Then came the Knights:
Brendom Mccullum and Chris Gayle started causiously and Karan Goel dropped a sitter of Gayle which is another turning point of the match.Like all good players Gayle took it in his stride and phew Irfan Pathan and the others were sent chasing Leather all over Kingsmead Durban.
Within the first 5 overs Kolkata Knight Riders had screamed past the 50 mark and were 76/1 in 7.2 overs when rain interrupted play and hasnt stopped since for the next match.
SRK expressed his gratitude to Duckworth and Lewis and wished he could meet them.He was extremely tensed and being a good actor in emotional movies he too could not control the anxiety and tension that was so evident on his brow.
It seems KKR might simply be the best team one day if their openers and Ganguly get going or disasterous if they loose their first three wickets.It was a change in strategy with Ganguly slated to come 2 down.Early days though but the day all three get going it will be a treat to all our eyes.
As for the Kings from Punjab ,all the pep talk and eye candy in the form of Priety Zinta wont do as they seem to have a really weak bowling line up without Brett Lee ,Shreesanth.
The cut-off time for the Mumbai Indians v Rajasthan Royals match is 10:45 pm IST and if rain doesnt stop we wont have a 5 over a side match.I dunno but if I were in either team I wouldnt be gearing up for that small a match.
Kings 11 Punjab had their moments.After loosing an early wicket Irfan Pathan who seems a much better batsmen than bowler did do good for their cause.But KKR kept taking wickets at crucial intervals.
Well you can love him,you can hate him but you cannot ignore the prince of Calcutta.With two wickets in one over and match figures of 4 overs 24 runs for 2 wickets Sourav Ganguly just proved us all wrong when people had started to write him off.
After the 10 overs and into the strategy break Kings 11 Punjab were 67/3 of 10 overs.
After the break Yuvraj Singh played really well with those flamboyant super sixes.His wicket was the most important wicket of the day when you look at the result.With him finding his feet a score of 200 was looming over KKR.
Towards the end of the match it was Mahela Jayawardenas late flurry that got them to a score of 158/6 which seemed power for the course.
Then came the Knights:
Brendom Mccullum and Chris Gayle started causiously and Karan Goel dropped a sitter of Gayle which is another turning point of the match.Like all good players Gayle took it in his stride and phew Irfan Pathan and the others were sent chasing Leather all over Kingsmead Durban.
Within the first 5 overs Kolkata Knight Riders had screamed past the 50 mark and were 76/1 in 7.2 overs when rain interrupted play and hasnt stopped since for the next match.
SRK expressed his gratitude to Duckworth and Lewis and wished he could meet them.He was extremely tensed and being a good actor in emotional movies he too could not control the anxiety and tension that was so evident on his brow.
It seems KKR might simply be the best team one day if their openers and Ganguly get going or disasterous if they loose their first three wickets.It was a change in strategy with Ganguly slated to come 2 down.Early days though but the day all three get going it will be a treat to all our eyes.
As for the Kings from Punjab ,all the pep talk and eye candy in the form of Priety Zinta wont do as they seem to have a really weak bowling line up without Brett Lee ,Shreesanth.
The cut-off time for the Mumbai Indians v Rajasthan Royals match is 10:45 pm IST and if rain doesnt stop we wont have a 5 over a side match.I dunno but if I were in either team I wouldnt be gearing up for that small a match.
Coming soon :ICC Cricket League
What I feel is that IPL will eventually go back to India.But eventually the success of the event in South Africa would be such an eye opener where by you could have the English Premier League for cricket or even bigger an ICC Cricket League.We already have the Pro20 Cricket tournament in South Africa and had the Allen Stanford cup in the west-Indies which are offshoots of this larger idea.May be more and more Cricket boards would offer huge chunks of money to Lalit Modi and the DLP IPL to organize it in their country.England was already a contendor for this years IPL and I see Australia with all the requisite Infrastructure to hold an event of this magnitude.
The IPL is predominantly and Indian event with only 4 Foreign players inside a team and it would make more sense to have more than just 4 international players.You could actually have more than just 4 foreign players.May be Independent clubs would be set up and there would no regulations about which players or the number of players from a particular nationality.Now this could be held yearly in a new country and thus giving a lot of opportunities for the other countries to take part and indulge in the spirit of the game of Cricket and T20.
Thus we could have the Champions league of cricket and the IPL which is more similar to the Football EPL.Champions trophy is designed to have winners of various tourneys come and participate and this is how ICC wants to milk the money from cricket.The official T20 World cup to be held once in 2 years seems another important factor that needs to be accounted for.
However the disadvantages would be the fact that One Day Internationals and test cricket would keep cricketers tied up with national commitments and after all T20 is not a purists game .It would be difficult to get these players time for various commitments to these independent tournaments.Playing only T20 is also not the main aim of any true cricketer and he always dreams to excel at Test Cricket.
So for the time being get your popcorn and pepsi and raise a toast to the IPL.
HEAT :Help educate and Teach in DLF IPL South Africa
With the various initiatives in DLF IPL Season 2 ,I really like this initiative where by in every match a 100,000 Rands are given to needy schools in and around the stadium/province in which the IPL Matches are being played.
Apart from this 5 young kids from those who have come to watch the IPL Matches are given 15,000 Rands as scholarship amount every match as money for their future education.
Lalit Modi calls it step to give back something to the country that has been so supportive to IPL in terms of their uncertainties and the quickfire scheduling of the entire event with in a time frame of 4 weeks.
Hats off to Lalit Modi and the team at IMG Sports group who came up with approximately 100 new schedules for the IPL in lieu of the Indian Home Ministry requesting the IPL to readjust the dates of the matches with the Lok Sabha elections taking place in India.
It feels good to see that young children are being encouraged to visit stadiums.Its really a great sight to see young South African youth visit the IPL and actually follow an Indian team.They seem to be coming in hordes and augurs well for the game of cricket.Most of these kids seem to be avid fans of Herschelle Gibbs,Graeme Smith,Jacques Kallis ,Shaun Pollock and even JP Duminy.
South Africans well known for Rugby seem to be taking a keen liking for cricket with their team beating the Aussies in a test series at Australia (though lost to them recently at home) and beating them in two consecutive one day series catapulting SA as the no 1 ODI team in the world.
Apart from this 5 young kids from those who have come to watch the IPL Matches are given 15,000 Rands as scholarship amount every match as money for their future education.
Lalit Modi calls it step to give back something to the country that has been so supportive to IPL in terms of their uncertainties and the quickfire scheduling of the entire event with in a time frame of 4 weeks.
Hats off to Lalit Modi and the team at IMG Sports group who came up with approximately 100 new schedules for the IPL in lieu of the Indian Home Ministry requesting the IPL to readjust the dates of the matches with the Lok Sabha elections taking place in India.
It feels good to see that young children are being encouraged to visit stadiums.Its really a great sight to see young South African youth visit the IPL and actually follow an Indian team.They seem to be coming in hordes and augurs well for the game of cricket.Most of these kids seem to be avid fans of Herschelle Gibbs,Graeme Smith,Jacques Kallis ,Shaun Pollock and even JP Duminy.
South Africans well known for Rugby seem to be taking a keen liking for cricket with their team beating the Aussies in a test series at Australia (though lost to them recently at home) and beating them in two consecutive one day series catapulting SA as the no 1 ODI team in the world.
Prisoners at a Jail in Kolkatta are demanding to watch the IPL.Wonder if KKR's woes will continue today.
Well prisoners of a jail in Kolkatta are really keen to watch the IPL.They have gone on a hunger strike until they get to watch their favourite cricketers all over the world.I wonder though if if their support for Kolkatta Knight Riders has dimished a little after their dismal performance from the last game.
They have consistently been 30 odd for 3 or 4 wickets over and over from the last years season.
Srk's dream is becoming a nightmare as he exulted after KKR's loss to Deccan Chargers.
But if you look at KKR's team composition they seem to have a long tail and are missing good allrounders of the likes of Jacob Oram,Scott Styris or even a Freddie Flintoff(if they could afford it).And a middle order stable batsmen like Ricky Ponting or Dravid is solely needed.Akash Chopra doesnt seem to fit well.
Ajit Agarkar has never been economical though the fastest to reach 50 wickets in one-dayers.Ishant Sharma is the only cricketer from the present Indian team to be playing in all three forms of cricket Test,One dayers and T20.This is a significant difference as India is one of the top one-day and the test team if not the numero uno and that is benefitting the other teams in the DLF IPL.
Pakistani fast bowlers like Umar Gul and a fully fit Shoaib Akhtar would have been idle for the conditions at South Africa.Salman Butt is another decent player to miss out.
I guess choosing a team can be such immaculate strategizing that who would have thought that relations between India and Pakistan would sour and players banned from that country.SRK should have hedged by choosing some South Africans.After all the IPL has taught a lesson or two in Business hedging and strategizing.
They have consistently been 30 odd for 3 or 4 wickets over and over from the last years season.
Srk's dream is becoming a nightmare as he exulted after KKR's loss to Deccan Chargers.
But if you look at KKR's team composition they seem to have a long tail and are missing good allrounders of the likes of Jacob Oram,Scott Styris or even a Freddie Flintoff(if they could afford it).And a middle order stable batsmen like Ricky Ponting or Dravid is solely needed.Akash Chopra doesnt seem to fit well.
Ajit Agarkar has never been economical though the fastest to reach 50 wickets in one-dayers.Ishant Sharma is the only cricketer from the present Indian team to be playing in all three forms of cricket Test,One dayers and T20.This is a significant difference as India is one of the top one-day and the test team if not the numero uno and that is benefitting the other teams in the DLF IPL.
Pakistani fast bowlers like Umar Gul and a fully fit Shoaib Akhtar would have been idle for the conditions at South Africa.Salman Butt is another decent player to miss out.
I guess choosing a team can be such immaculate strategizing that who would have thought that relations between India and Pakistan would sour and players banned from that country.SRK should have hedged by choosing some South Africans.After all the IPL has taught a lesson or two in Business hedging and strategizing.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Match 5 of the DLF IPL2.Chennai beat Royal Challengers comprehensively despite their lull after the strategy break.
Match 5 of the DLF IPL2:
Bangalore Royal Challengers vs the Chennai Super Kings:
Royal Challengers got off to a decent start with Jacques Kallis looking in good form.But from 40/1 in 5.1 overs things were all set for an interesting run feast and a humdinger of a match.
But in a span of 11 runs they lost 5 wickets and from that stage on with Freddie Flintoff bowling just short of a length ,perfect for the conditions the match was heading only one way,the chennai way.
The defeat margin could have been higher if not for the strategy break
Chennai Innings:
Like written before the Strategy Break seems to have halted the momentum of Chennai Super Kings with Kevin Peterson clean bowling Parthiv Patel.Mathew Hayden being run out brilliantly by Rahul Dravid for 65 of 37 balls.
After the initial 10 overs going for 106/0 Chennai have ended with 179/5 only 73 runs for 5 wickets of the last 10 overs.Overall its a good score with it being the highest T20 score at St Georges ,Port Elizabeth.It was kevin peterson who bowled 2 overs for 7 runs and the important opening wicket of Parthiv Patel.
Freddie Flintoff remained unbeated and hit an awesome flatbatted six of Daryl Sten in the last over.Daryl steyn also dropped a skier of Suresh Raina of Kumble who evetually holed out to a good catch by Virat Kohli of Praveen Kumar scoring 28 of 29 balls.
Mahendra singh dhoni trying to up the scoring was caught by Bishnoi of Kumar scoring 16 of 14 balls.
.Chennai has won the toss and raced to 106/0 in 10 Overs with Hayden racing to 53 of 22 balls.Bangalore seemed to have very little options with everyone from Kumble to Kumar being belted for runs.At the strategy break Bangalore and Kevin Peterson seems to be having their hands full and needed to make serious inroads.
Earlier Mahendra Singh dhoni has won the toss and has elected to bat.Chennai have two changes with Murlitharan and Albie Morkel coming in. Also Bangalore has Jacques Kallis in the team in place of Jess Ryder.All the decisions seem to be good and makes an interesting prospect.
With another important aspect being the Red Cap being handed over to Rahul Dravid as the highest run getter and the Blue Cap being handed over to Anil Kumble as the highest wicket taker of the tournament so far, it augurs well for the Royal Challengers after their last years debacle.
Well the weather Gods seem to be angry again and it slightly overcast.As per Kris Shrikanth the pitch should turn for Muralitharan later in the day and a good score would be 135-140.The average score here has been close to 125.All in all an exciting prospect coming up.
The conditions are overcast and surprisingly both captains wanted to bat first after winning the toss.I feel it going to be a series where the older much more experienced players like Dravid,Kumble and Kallis will have a much bigger say compared to the flat wickets of last year.
Bangalore Royal Challengers vs the Chennai Super Kings:
Royal Challengers got off to a decent start with Jacques Kallis looking in good form.But from 40/1 in 5.1 overs things were all set for an interesting run feast and a humdinger of a match.
But in a span of 11 runs they lost 5 wickets and from that stage on with Freddie Flintoff bowling just short of a length ,perfect for the conditions the match was heading only one way,the chennai way.
The defeat margin could have been higher if not for the strategy break
Chennai Innings:
Like written before the Strategy Break seems to have halted the momentum of Chennai Super Kings with Kevin Peterson clean bowling Parthiv Patel.Mathew Hayden being run out brilliantly by Rahul Dravid for 65 of 37 balls.
After the initial 10 overs going for 106/0 Chennai have ended with 179/5 only 73 runs for 5 wickets of the last 10 overs.Overall its a good score with it being the highest T20 score at St Georges ,Port Elizabeth.It was kevin peterson who bowled 2 overs for 7 runs and the important opening wicket of Parthiv Patel.
Freddie Flintoff remained unbeated and hit an awesome flatbatted six of Daryl Sten in the last over.Daryl steyn also dropped a skier of Suresh Raina of Kumble who evetually holed out to a good catch by Virat Kohli of Praveen Kumar scoring 28 of 29 balls.
Mahendra singh dhoni trying to up the scoring was caught by Bishnoi of Kumar scoring 16 of 14 balls.
.Chennai has won the toss and raced to 106/0 in 10 Overs with Hayden racing to 53 of 22 balls.Bangalore seemed to have very little options with everyone from Kumble to Kumar being belted for runs.At the strategy break Bangalore and Kevin Peterson seems to be having their hands full and needed to make serious inroads.
Earlier Mahendra Singh dhoni has won the toss and has elected to bat.Chennai have two changes with Murlitharan and Albie Morkel coming in. Also Bangalore has Jacques Kallis in the team in place of Jess Ryder.All the decisions seem to be good and makes an interesting prospect.
With another important aspect being the Red Cap being handed over to Rahul Dravid as the highest run getter and the Blue Cap being handed over to Anil Kumble as the highest wicket taker of the tournament so far, it augurs well for the Royal Challengers after their last years debacle.
Well the weather Gods seem to be angry again and it slightly overcast.As per Kris Shrikanth the pitch should turn for Muralitharan later in the day and a good score would be 135-140.The average score here has been close to 125.All in all an exciting prospect coming up.
The conditions are overcast and surprisingly both captains wanted to bat first after winning the toss.I feel it going to be a series where the older much more experienced players like Dravid,Kumble and Kallis will have a much bigger say compared to the flat wickets of last year.
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