“Oh God, please save our team…” This was an anxious wail from Dilip Dominic on the Kochi IPL team's Facebook page on Saturday. “Put the name as Kochi Rumours XI.”
Minutes earlier, Arun Vijayan had posted a picture of a tiger in tears. There is a link, between the tiger and the team, for Kochi's coach Geoff Lawson had suggested ‘Kochi Tigers' as the team's name.
Arun Vijayan came back a few minutes later, “guys, why don't we arrange a fans' open meet in Cochin.”
Reason for anxiety
There is a good reason for the anxiety of Kochi fans. There are rumours floating around that efforts are on to move Kochi's matches, if not all at least some of them, to Ahmedabad.
And a DNA story on Sourav Ganguly, from Mumbai on Saturday, had a mention that the Kochi team was awaiting a final decision from the IPL Governing Council whether it could host its matches in Ahmedabad.
No team name yet
Kochi has also not announced the name of its team and there has been very little flow of information from the owners regarding quite a few things. All these have added fuel to the fire.
Calls to the Kochi team's co-owner Vivek Venugopal went unanswered this afternoon but there was an assuring message from the administrator of the Kochi's Facebook page a little later, which said, “Guys! We will update you on any and all official updates.
Please don't worry because of any rumours.”
Meanwhile, the Kerala Cricket Association Secretary T.C. Mathew said a move to shift Kochi's matches, if any, would not work out.
“The BCCI has told me clearly that it would not allow shifting the matches from Kochi,” he said.
Mathew also said that work on replacing the floodlights at the Nehru Stadium, which is preparing to host Kochi's matches here, have begun and work on the ground would be intensified in a couple of days. “We will have the stadium and the ground ready on time for the IPL,” assured Mathew.
