After Sanjiv Goenka's Indian Premier League (IPL) team revealed its name on Monday evening, other IPL teams rolled out the red carpet to welcome the newcomer. Named "Lucknow Super Giants", this is Goenka’s second stint as an IPL boss. He owned the now-disbanded Rising Super Giants Pune.
Taking to Twitter, IPL teams welcomed Lucknow Super Giants warmly. While Delhi Capitals offered a "Giant hug", Chennai Super Kings played around with the word "Super" common in both the team names and commented, "'Super' Name Machi!"
Mumbai Indians too welcomed the new team into "one family". "A Super welcome to the family, Super Giants," the team tweeted.
Meanwhile, Kolkata Knight Riders did not refrain from pointing out how the "Super Giants" are back in the game. The team added that they were looking forward to "the fairytale clashes between the Knights and the Giants."
Rajasthan Royals too did not back away to point out the similarity in both the names.
The Lucknow Super Giants have already faced backlash on Twitter for its name as owner Sanjiv Goenka's first team was named Rising Pune Super Giants. It was part of IPL for two years and were runner-up in 2017.
The Pune-based franchise was bought into the fore, once Chennai Super Kings and Rajasthan Royals were barred from participating in the IPL. Subsequently, two new franchises, Rising Pune Super Giants and Gujarat Lions were given entry into the IPL but were disbanded once the old franchises returned.
The official IPL team of Lucknow, owned by RPSG Group, had asked fans for suggestions for the team's name, and had received an overwhelming response with more than 7,500 comments.
Lucknow Super Giants owner Sanjiv Goenka in a video message on Monday said, “Thank you so much for your overwhelming response to the ‘Naam banao naam kamao (make a name, earn a name)’ contest. Lakhs and lakhs of people responded, based on that we are very happy to choose the name for the Lucknow IPL team."
“And the name that we have chosen based on your recommendations is Lucknow Super Giants. Thank you so much for your response and love and continue to give us your blessings in the future as well."
The name reveal, however, left the fans disappointed because of its similarity to Rising Pune Super Giants.
Lucknow Super Giants has KL Rahul as their captain. He was signed by the franchise for a record Rs 17 crore. The while they also landed Australian all-rounder Marcus Stoinis and uncapped Indian young spinner Ravi Bishnoi for Rs 9.2 crore, and Rs 4 crore, respectively.
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