Why are the Rajasthan Royals wearing pink in IPL and will they wear the kit for the whole season?
THE IPL is underway and viewers would have been hard pressed to miss the Rajasthan Royals’ change of colour. The Jaipur based team will play the full 2019 Indian Premier League season in a fetching pink kit. Why are the Rajasthan Royals wearing pink in the IPL? Rajasthan’s new pink kit has a dual meaning. […]
THE IPL is underway and viewers would have been hard pressed to miss the Rajasthan Royals’ change of colour.
The Jaipur based team will play the full 2019 Indian Premier League season in a fetching pink kit.
Why are the Rajasthan Royals wearing pink in the IPL?
Rajasthan’s new pink kit has a dual meaning.
It all started when the team wore pink to raise awareness for breast cancer in one match last season.
But it also celebrate’s Jaipur’s identity as India’s ‘Pink City’.
Every building in the historic centre of Rajasthan’s capital is a terracotta pink colour as a result of the Maharaja’s strategy to impress Prince Albert in his 1876 tour of India.
Even today, the pink colour code of Jaipur’s centre is strictly enforced by local law.
Rajasthan Royals captain Ajinkya Rahane said of the kit: “We wore pink for cancer awareness in one match last year and the fans loved it. Then we thought that Jaipur is the pink city and we should be wearing pink.”
And brand ambassador Shane Warne added: “I think when we think back the last year and we joined forces with cancer charities and raised awareness about that, the fans coming back and saying we love the Royals in pink.
“We all started thinking that may be we should do it full time.
“We then started elaborating that and exploring, Jaipur is the pink city and we thought let’s go with it.
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“The players are looking forward to wearing it and more importantly, the fans they absolutely love it. I think the boys will be rocking the pink this year.”
Pink cricket kits have become more and more popular in recent years thanks to Aussie legend Glenn McGrath, whose wife died of breast cancer in 2005.
And every January, on day three of Australia’s test in Sydney, the crowd dress in pink to support the McGrath Foundation.