IPL 6: Mumbai Indians or Mumbai Mockers?

The following is a blog written in good humour

In a sudden turn of events, the star studded Mumbai Indians, which boasts of Sachin Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting, Anil Kumble, John Wright, Harbhajan Singh, and Rohit Sharma (yes, the Rohit Sharma) in different capacities, today decided to change its name from Mumbai Indians to Mumbai Mockers.

The only team in IPL which was showing allegiance to both the franchise city and the ‘I’ in IPL- considered by many as Indian, has dropped the latter from its name and will follow other teams in the naming convention.

"Choosing the name as Mumbai Indians in the beginning was a strategic decision. The reason was to keep the country also in the name, and the order was picked keeping in mind the two Senas in Maharashtra, which always demanded that it was Maharashtra first and India later", added a source.

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The source admitted that in the last five editions, the team couldn’t perform to the expectation of the owners, and the soul searching started after a high-level meeting last year. While the previous meetings remained inconclusive, the one yesterday after the hair-line loss to Royal Challengers Bangalore brought out some never-thought about facts.

"In yesterday's game we literally mocked ourselves, appropriately helped by the third umpire's different camera angles. An astrologer suggested it was the name of the team which was the problem", revealed the source. "The idea was embraced by the Ambanis immediately, whose faith in Vastu is not unknown as they didn't shift in their new sky rocketing house much after it was complete and was ready to welcome the first family."

"We mocked ourselves not just in the game against RCB. We have been doing that since the first edition of the IPL - almost on a consistent basis. In many games, we were there, just there, but couldn't cross the line. One way to get out of a bad habit is keep reminding yourself of it. And there could have been no better way than keeping  'mockers' in the name itself. While some teams were called as chokers and jokers at different times in the past, we thought mockers would suit us the best," explained the source.

The source also told that the number of letters in the name was not a problem as argued by some observers that three-letter teams have won IPL more number of times than those having two letters. So MI will be MM now, just a ‘S’ short of the how we fondly call the Prime Minister - MMS.

It should be interesting to see how this change along with the captain-change affects luck for the Mumbai Mockers. Hope the current team structure doesn’t resemble the dual-power structure at the Centre though - with Ricky Ponting as Manmohan Singh, and Sachin Tendulkar as Sonia Gandhi.