Durham Chennai Liaison

As posted yesterday;  TMS them no lie.   Durham County Cricket Club Chief Executive, David Harker, and Chairman, Clive W Leach CBE, have just returned from a business trip to India where they had been invited by Chennai based Durham sponsors, 5G.   Where will it go from here….?

The Durham Super Kings?

Up early and listening to the Test match on the radio.  Test Match Special has just had a lunchtime report on the progress of this years IPL and its impact in India, part of it mentioning that representatives from Durham have been speaking with the Chennai Supper Kings IPL franchise.

That’s the team in violent yellow with Matty Hayden, his mongoose, Albie Morkle and Dohni.

Presumably it is purely a fact finding mission and I know yellow is one of Durham’s colours but a whole strip is not a good look!  It’s a bit of extra IPL interest that I wasn’t anticipating anyway!

My IPL team in shock win!

I’m feeling all rose tinted from tonight’s KKR performance – so here is a picture of a rose tinted Murali, playing for Middlesex.

It seems that the Kolkata Knight Riders are the but of many a joke in IPL circles – but not today.  From a dreadful start, and some poor fielding they salvaged quite an entertaining win.

ITV 4 were quite neutral – as in non annoying in their coverage.  So I will give this IPL another go.

It is such a shame that our domestic completion is not available in the same way.  Bizarre even!

IPL; NE India, That Would be Kolkata.

Now that a form of cricket is on real TV I feel duty bound to watch, Bollywood pompom fluff or not.  I have never seen any IPL action to date but decided on Kolkata before the first year started – hence not being able to support wor Colly n the Devils, which I probably would have done if he had played in that first year, although I also like the look of Mumbai this year.

I chose Kolkata for non team reasons mainly because I really like Kolkata as a city.  In fact I really like Bengal and the NE Indian states.  So no Durham players but fits in the the NE thing – so there is tenuous for you.  I quite like Kartik and he has been with them from the start

We have the important stuff covered: the good name – Ganguly, the weird spinner – Mendis, the luxuriant hair-do that is Ishant Sharma, the too laid back for his own good Gayle and the ‘if he ever gets to bowl I will be gob-smacked and faint’ – Bond.  [he is not listed on their website strangely as he seemed to be quite an expensive buy – the invisible man even!]

So onward until the County season starts – then I’ll be hoping that young Stokes decides it’s his ambition to play in the big time, and bats like he’s on an Indian flat track all season [hopefully dismissing all bowling as easily], now that would be something to look forward to.

League Sports Marketing, India and IPL Fever

A Quick Catchup; India, Cricket Globalisation, and the IPL.  An Indian media perspective as waffled by ESPN Journalist and Business analyst Harsha Bhogle