Rising Pune Supergiants change team name ahead of IPL 2017

The tenth edition of Indian Premier League (IPL) has almost arrived, and the teams have started their preparations in their respective home cities. Meanwhile, the newly introduced team Rising Pune Supergiants, are also ready for their second addition, but this time around, with a new name. The team owners have decided to rename their team’s name and it will now be called Rising Pune Supergiant. The team also renamed their Twitter handle with the new name.

The franchise officials refused to comment on this issue, but as per rumours, the reason behind the sudden change in name is a poor run in the last season and astronomical reasons to perform better this year. “The name change was on the cards after last season’s performance,” a source was quoted in the media.

But, other sources said there is no superstition behind the new name. It was a more thought decision as they wanted to change the way the team was projected this season also considering it is their last.

“Before every season, we have a meeting with the creative team, and there it was decided that it is better to project the whole team rather than focusing on a few players. That is the reason behind changing the name.” He said.

RPS had earlier this month made a huge announcement when it sacked MS Dhoni as captain of the team who led them in the previous edition and brought in Steven Smith as the replacement. Seems that the team with so many changes wants to change its fortunes this year.

“Last season, the focus was solely on the five core players, but that strategy didn’t work out. With the team not doing well and matches shifted from Pune, the stakes were hugely affected. This time, the focus is to improve the business propositions as well,” a reputed source was quoted saying.

The outfit boasted of big names like MS Dhoni, Steven Smith, Ajinkya Rahane, R Ashwin and Kevin Pietersen in the previous outing, but was unable to compete with other teams and finished second last on the points table.