Kochi Tuskers Kerala is a now defunct franchise cricket team that played in the

Indian Premier League The Indian Premier League (IPL) is a professional Twenty20 (T20) cricket league in India, organised by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Founded in 2007, it features ten city-based Professional sports league organization, fr ...

(IPL) representing the city of

Kochi Kochi ( , ), List of renamed Indian cities and states#Kerala, formerly known as Cochin ( ), is a major port city along the Malabar Coast of India bordering the Laccadive Sea. It is part of the Ernakulam district, district of Ernakulam in the ...

Kerala Kerala ( , ) is a States and union territories of India, state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile ...

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. The team was one of two new franchises added to the IPL for the 2011 season, alongside Pune Warriors India. The team franchise was owned by Kochi Cricket Pvt Ltd., which was a consortium of multiple companies. The KTK only played for one season, in 2011, and was terminated the following year.

Franchise history

The auction for expanding the initial eight franchises for the

was held on 22 March 2010. The cities involved were

Pune Pune ( ; , ISO 15919, ISO: ), previously spelled in English as Poona (List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1978), is a city in the state of Maharashtra in the Deccan Plateau, Deccan plateau in Western ...

Ahmedabad Ahmedabad ( ), also spelled Amdavad (), is the most populous city in the Indian state of Gujarat. It is the administrative headquarters of the Ahmedabad district and the seat of the Gujarat High Court. Ahmedabad's population of 5,570,585 ...

Nagpur Nagpur (; ISO 15919, ISO: ''Nāgapura'') is the second capital and third-largest city of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is called the heart of India because of its central geographical location. It is the largest and most populated city i ...

Kanpur Kanpur (Hindustani language, Hindustani: ), originally named Kanhapur and formerly anglicized as Cawnpore, is the second largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Uttar Pradesh after Lucknow. It was the primary ...

, Dharamsala,

Visakhapatnam Visakhapatnam (; List of renamed places in India, formerly known as Vizagapatam, and also referred to as Vizag, Visakha, and Waltair) is the largest and most populous metropolitan city in the States and union territories of India, Indian stat ...

Rajkot Rajkot () is the fourth-largest city in the Indian state of Gujarat Gujarat () is a States of India, state along the Western India, western coast of India. Its coastline of about is the longest in the country, most of which lies on the ...

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Vadodara Vadodara (), also known as Baroda, is a city situated on the banks of the Vishwamitri River in the Indian state of Gujarat. It serves as the administrative headquarters of the Vadodara district. The city is named for its abundance of banyan ...

Indore Indore (; ISO 15919, ISO: , ) is the largest and most populous Cities in India, city in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. The commercial capital of the state, it has been declared as the List of cleanest cities in India, cleanest city of In ...

and

Gwalior Gwalior (Hindi: , ) is a major city in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh; It is known as the Music City of India having oldest Gwalior gharana, musical gharana in existence. It is a major sports, cultural, industrial, and political c ...

. Two new teams were selected out of 12 cities. Sahara Group made the highest bid in the auction and chose to base its team in Pune, at the cost of US$370m (1702 crore). Rendezvous Sports World made the second highest bid of US$333.2m (1533 crores), and elected to base its team in Kochi. The two new franchises were sold for a combined sum greater than the combined purchase price of the original eight franchises.Pune, Kochi named new IPL teams, ''Times of India''
/ref>

Team name and home ground issues

The franchise initially announced that the name of the team would be "Indi Commandos". This led to negative responses worldwide. The franchise management suggested that a move to

was possible, moving the team away from Kochi, due in part to a comparatively high entertainment tax in Kerala (36%). This invoked a mass response on social networks, particularly on Facebook, forcing management to change the team name and logo. A poll on the franchise's official website eventually determined the team name. The decision to move the home ground was dropped when the Corporation of Kochi waived 50% of the entertainment tax levee.

Termination from the IPL

Due to a dispute amongst the team owners, the franchise failed to pay the 10% bank guarantee element of the franchise fee which was supposed to be paid before the 2011 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 franchise was being terminated because it had failed to provide the bank guarantee. 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. The players from the side were auctioned to other franchises in the 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 overseas players who had signed a contract with the franchise to sue the owners, with the BCCI included as a 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 as compensation for terminating the franchise agreement. ''

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'' reported that the franchise owners had requested the BCCI to permit the team to return to the IPL, instead of the compensation awarded by the arbitrator.

Team identity

The team's shirt colours were purple and orange with orange trousers. The franchise's signature song was composed by veteran film score composer Ouseppachan. The music video for the song was filmed by

Priyadarshan Priyadarshan Soman Nair (born 30 January 1957) is an Indian film director and screenwriter. He has worked primarily in Malayalam cinema, Malayalam and Hindi cinema, Hindi cinema since 1982, directing over 90 films in multiple Indian languages, ...

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 Rima Kallingal is an Indian actress and film producer who primarily works in Malayalam cinema, Malayalam films. Early life and work Born in Thrissur, Kerala, Kallingal began practising dancing when she was three years old. A dancer by professio ...

Seasons

Indian Premier League

Result summary

Overall

By opposition

Home grounds

The two home grounds of the Kochi Tuskers Kerala were the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Kochi and Holkar Cricket Stadium,

. Five homes matches were held at Kochi and two at

. The Greater Cochin Development Authority completely over-hauled the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium to cater for hosting IPL matches.

Kit manufacturers and sponsors

Federal Bank, a major Indian commercial bank in the private sector, with its headquarters in

Aluva Aluva () is a Municipalities of Kerala, municipality and a northern suburb of the city of Kochi in Kerala. It is located about north of the city centre. Aluva is known for the Aluva Sivarathri festival, Sivarathri festival, which is celebra ...

, Kerala, was the principal sponsor of Kochi Tuskers Kerala. Lotto, an Italian sports goods manufacturer, was the apparel sponsor,Kochi IPL signs up Lauda as kit sponsor, ''The Economic Times''
/ref> V-Guard, an electronics company, and AVT, a tea brand, were the associate sponsors with Elite Foods, Parinee Developers and Anchor Earth are the other main sponsors.

References

{{Kerala Sports Indian Premier League teams Sport in Kochi Sports clubs and teams in India Cricket clubs established in 2011 Sports clubs and teams disestablished in 2011 2011 disestablishments in India Former senior cricket clubs of India Cricket in Kerala 2011 establishments in Kerala