ICC rebrands West Indies as Person of Indian Origin XI - Hindustan Times
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ICC rebrands West Indies as Person of Indian Origin XI

Hindustan Times | ByGursimran Khamba, London
Nov 22, 2011 11:46 AM IST

In a surprising turn of events, the International Cricket Council announced the rebranding of the West Indian cricket team as Person of Indian Origin XI. Gursimran Khamba writes why.

In a surprising turn of events, the International Cricket Council announced the rebranding of the West Indian cricket team as Person of Indian Origin XI. The move came after the ICC branding and marketing committee, commonly referred to as Mr Sharad Pawar, concluded that rebranding the team as Indian would lead to a severe spike in attracting youth and financial investment towards cricket amongst the island nation.

Mr Pawar said: "Everyone knows that Indians are crazy about cricket. You saw how in the Test Series between India and the West Indians stadiums were packed with 70, sometimes even 80 people. By rebranding the team, we hope to achieve similar results in the island nation. As it is the whole team is full of Shivnarains, Ravis and Devendras. All we are doing is consolidating".

Former cricketer and commentator Ravi Shastri also hailed the move. "I think it's great. Pitches in the West Indies are similar to India anyway. Now with the rebranding you will have a lot more teams wanting to tour and play against them hoping to make some money - or atleast Sri Lanka once every two months. I will have other talking points but I need to get direction from the BCCI on what to say first."

Former West Indian cricketers were not amused. Clive Lloyd said: "This shows how much the game has gone commercial - where even national integrity is being sacrificed in the name of economic sense. Why not merge India and Pakistan again too? Imagine how much convenience it will be for match fixers with all in the same team? This is a ploy by India to replace its current generation of rubbish fast bowlers with ours."

The ICC is also debating other revisions to the game - the most controversial of which remains allowing bowlers to bowl to Chanderpaul from square leg to improve their chances of taking his wicket.

Gursimran Khamba is a pissed off writer, stand up comic, podcaster, social media junkie and lover of all fried foods. Except bananas. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/#!/gkhamba

(The views expressed by the author are personal)

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