Kochi Tuskers Kerala

Auction

The auction for expanding the initial eight franchises for the Indian Premier League was held on 22 March 2010. The cities involved in the auction were Pune, Ahmedabad, Kochi, Nagpur, Kanpur, Dharamsala, Visakhapatnam, Rajkot, Cuttack, Vadodara, Indore and Gwalior. Two new teams were selected out of 12 teams, which bid for 2011 IPL matches. Sahara Group made the highest bid in the auction and chose to base its team in Pune, at the cost of U$370m (₹1702 crore). Rendezvous Sports World made the second highest bid of ₹15.33 billion, and elected to base its team in Kochi. The two new franchises were sold for a combined sum of money, which was greater than the combined purchase price of all the original eight IPL franchises. With the Kochi team and Pune team participating in the 2011 IPL tournament, all four southern states in India had an IPL franchise, while Maharashtra has two IPL franchises.

The original shareholding pattern of KTK was:

Of the 26% held by Rendezvous Sports World in whose name the title rights were vested, the Gaekwads would only get (10%) free plus (1%) paid, Sunanda Pushkar (5%) and another (10%) was reserved for the brand ambassador for the team.

The restructured shareholding pattern was:

Initial franchise issues

The franchise had been at the centre of many controversies since its inception. BCCI had given the franchise ultimatum to dissolve factionalism and infighting or face scrapping. After a series of lengthy meetings the company sent a letter to the BCCI requesting more time stating that the negotiations were in an advanced stage and they needed some more time to be sorted.

The BCCI announced that on 27 October it would decide the fate of the Kochi team and the BCCI insisted that the two cases of the Kochi Tuskers Kerala and Kings XI Punjab and Rajasthan Royals which were expelled are different. The IPL Governing council decided to give them a 30-day termination notice which meant that the franchise would have to reply to the notice within 30 days and if the IPL accepted their agreement then the franchise would no longer face the prospect of being terminated The Kochi promoters submitted a letter to the BCCI officials with regard to the revised structure of agreement hammered out between them. The BCCI governing council meeting was held on 28 Nov 2010 at Nagpur to decide the fate of Kochi franchisee. BCCI president Shashank Manohar said the board needed more time to discuss the issue and to take legal opinion and that the final decision on Kochi Tuskers Kerala will be taken on the BCCI governing council meeting at Mumbai on 5 December 2010. After much speculation it was finally announced by the BCCI that it was satisfied with the agreements signed by the franchise owners and the team would participate in the 2011 IPL Season.

Team name and home ground issues

Kochi team management had announced "Indi Commandos Kerala" as the original team name in February 2011. The name and logo received much negative response from the fans worldwide. Things got worse by team management's further decision to drop "Kerala" from the team name and the reported move to Ahmedabad as the home ground; comparatively high entertainment tax in Kerala (36%) was cited as the reason for the latter. This invoked a mass response in the social networking sites, particularly on Facebook, forcing the management to ultimately change the team name and logo. As a result, a voting poll was set up in the official site and the fans were provided the option the vote between either Kochi or Kerala as the first part of the name and the second part of the name from any of Titans, Tuskers, Tigers, Commandos and United. Tuskers which won this polling was selected as the team name and the full name was released as Kochi Tuskers Kerala. The decision to change the home ground also was dropped by the team management when Corporation of Cochin decided to waive off a 50% in the entertainment tax which now is 18% per game.

Termination from IPL

Due to a dispute among the owners, the Kochi Tuskers franchise failed to pay the 10% bank guarantee of the total franchise fee that it was supposed to pay before the season began. The BCCI claimed that it had sent several requests for payment to the franchise owners but received no response. On 19 September 2011, then BCCI president N. Srinivasan announced that the Kochi Tuskers Kerala IPL franchise was terminated by the BCCI because they failed to provide the bank guarantee to cover their annual fee. The franchise's plea seeking to restrain the BCCI from encashing its bank guarantee of ₹1.56 billion was rejected by a single bench of Justice SF Vajifdar.

On 14 October 2011, the IPL Governing Council announced that there would be only nine teams participating in 2012 after the Kochi franchise was expelled from the league. The players from the Kochi Tuskers were auctioned to other franchises in 2012 IPL player auction. Players who attracted no bids had their salaries covered via the team's bank guarantee from the previous season. On 13 January 2012, the BCCI asked the foreign individual players who had signed a contract with Kochi Tuskers to sue Kochi Tuskers' owners, with the BCCI included as party to each case.

In February 2012, Rendezvous Sports World announced that it would take the BCCI to court over its termination from the IPL. In July 2015, a court-appointed arbitrator Justice Lahoti ordered the BCCI to pay ₹550 crore (US$82 million) as compensation for terminating the Kochi Tuskers franchise agreement. ESPNCricinfo reported that the franchise owners had requested the BCCI to permit the team to return to the IPL, in lieu of the compensation awarded by the arbitrator. IPL Governing Council intends to appeal the ban.

Home grounds

The two home grounds of the Kochi Tuskers Kerala were the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Kochi and Holkar Cricket Stadium, Indore. Five homes matches were held at Kochi and two at Indore. The Greater Cochin Development Authority completely over-hauled the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium to cater for hosting IPL matches.

Players

KTK bought 17 players in the IPL 2011 auction, signing five specialist batsmen, those being Mahela Jayawardene, VVS Laxman, Brad Hodge, Owais Shah and Michael Klinger. The team signed six bowlers, the most notable being Sri Lankan off-spinner Muttiah Muralitharan. The others include Sreesanth, RP Singh, Ramesh Powar, Vinay Kumar and Steve O'Keefe. Four all-rounders were signed those being Ravindra Jadeja, Steve Smith, Thisara Perera and John Hastings. Two renowned Wicket-keeper batsmen were signed, Brendon McCullum who is the leading run scorer in Twenty20 Internationals and Parthiv Patel. However, KTK lost both their Australian all-rounders Steve Smith and John Hastings for the 2011 season due to injuries, without either of them playing a game for KTK.

The Sri Lankan players playing in IPL were asked to return by 5 May for a training camp ahead of their scheduled tour of England by the Sri Lankan Cricket Board. KTK's captain Mahela Jayawardene and Thisara Perera were supposed to leave the team early, but the BCCI and the Sri Lankan board came to an agreement and the players returned only by 18 May. Jayawardene's possible departure fueled speculation that Sourav Ganguly may join the team, as KTK could request the IPL Governing Council for a replacement as per the rule of same base price. Ganguly would ultimately join the other debut team of IPL 4, Pune Warriors India in place of their injured fast bowler, Ashish Nehra.

On 18 May 2011, Parthiv Patel lead the Tuskers against Chennai Super Kings in their last match of the 2011 season as skipper Mahela Jayawardene had to leave for national duty.

Jersey colours

The jersey of Kochi Tuskers Kerala was purple hazes in orange T-shirt and orange trousers. The team management explained the selection of colours – Orange for the highest run scorer and purple for the highest wicket-taker- the colours of the caps .

Sponsors

Federal Bank, a major Indian commercial bank in the private sector, with headquarters in Aluva, Kerala, was the principal sponsor of Kochi Tuskers Kerala. The tickets for KTK's home matches were sold through Federal bank branches and their website.The Ticket sales of Kochi Tuskers Kerala was officially started in a ceremony hosted at the Le Meridian Hotel Kochi, on 28 March. Soon after, the tickets become available at the team's official ticketing partner website kyazoonga.com.

Lotto, an Italian sports goods manufacturer was the apparel sponsor for the team.

V-Guard, an electronics company and AVT, a tea brand were the associate sponsors. Elite Foods, Parinee Developers and Anchor Earth are the other main sponsors.

Theme song

The signature song of Kochi Tuskers Kerala is composed by veteran film score composer Ouseppachan. The music video for the song was filmed by Priyadarshan and his cinematographer Thiru. The song was shot at various locales including Paravur, Cherraai, Varapuzha backwaters and the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium. It features almost all the leading players in the team as well as Malayalam movie actress Rima Kallingal.