By IANS
Chennai : India Cements, one of the eight franchisees of the Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket tournament, Monday formally unveiled the name and logo of its team, the Chennai Super Kings.
At a function here, N. Srinivasan, vice-chairman and managing director of India Cements, launched the logo that depicts a lion, “the king of the jungle”, and said it was the start of a series of marketing exercises marked by road shows, promotions and events.
He named former India captain, opener and member of the 1983 World Cup winning team Krishnamachari Srikkanth as the brand ambassador of the Chennai Super Kings, whose players will be attired in yellow and blue ensemble with the colours representing “fire” and “infinity”.
He said the lion also reflects the “fearless rulers of the golden era of Tamil culture” marked by the Chera, Chola, Pandya and Pallava dynasties. “The word super is very contemporary, colloquial and popular with the youth of Tamil Nadu,” he added.
Srinivasan, who is also the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) treasurer and the president of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Association, said that a delegation led by former India ODI opener and national selector V.B. Chandrasekar would be attending the auctioning of the players to be held in Mumbai Wednesday.
The player pool includes virtually all the top stars drawn from International Cricket Council (ICC) affiliated countries.
“Chandrasekar, having been an India player and also a national selector, has the requisite credentials to head our operations in so far as selecting the 16 players for Chennai Super Kings,” is concerned, Srinivasan said.
The IPL will be played on cricket’s newest format, the Twenty20, with 59 matches over 44 days beginning April 18.
India Cements made a successful bid of $91 million to acquire the franchisee rights for the Chennai team.
The other successful franchisee bidders were: Shah Rukh Khan-Juhi Chawla-Jay Mehta combine ($75.09 Million, Kolkata); Vijay Mallya ($111.6 million, Bangalore); Mukesh Ambani ($111.9 million, Mumbai); Preity Zinta-Ness Wadia ($76 million, Mohali); GMR Holdings ($86 million, Delhi); Deccan Chronicle ($107.01 million, Hyderabad) and Emerging Media ($67 million, Jaipur).
Srinivasan said all the home matches of Chennai Super Kings would be played at the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium in Chepauk.
He discounted the weather factor, although the matches are scheduled during the peak of summer in Chennai, pointing to the 8 p.m. starting time.
“I don’t think the weather will be an issue since we plan to start the matches at 8 in the evening and complete it by 11 pm. The weather will be quite pleasant during the period,” he said.
Explaining the choice of MAC Stadium, Srinivasan said: “The venues of all IPL matches would be standardised in terms of look and feel. So, when you enter the stadium, you will immediately identify it as an IPL stadium.”