Dumping names for numbers
In India Today , Sharda Ugra analyses the team uniforms and wonders why the player names seem to get lost under the massive numbers and sponsor names
Kanishkaa Balachandran
25-Feb-2013
In India Today, Sharda Ugra analyses the team uniforms and wonders why the player names seem to get lost under the massive numbers and sponsor names. She says the IPL can follow the English Premier League model with home and away strips for all teams so that no one wears the same colour on the field, making it possible to tell the teams apart on the telly.
In the IPL-II, most players (barring a few Delhi Daredevils) have given up the names on their backs for the sponsors’ name (which means money). Below the sponsors' names comes a gigantic numeral (which means nothing). The player’s name has sunk somewhere below the nonsense number, near the waistband. Which is why you hear the commentators hollering sponsors’ names out rather than identifying the lesser-known cricketers accurately – see, the cameras can’t catch the names on their T-shirts fast enough.
Kanishkaa Balachandran is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo