Congress, SP object to orange jerseys for India's cricket team, say Modi govt 'wants to saffronise everything'

The Congress and Samajwadi Party on Wednesday raised objections over the orange jerseys that will likely be sported by the Indian cricket team in their upcoming match against England in the ongoing International Cricket Council (ICC) men's cricket World Cup.

"Modi ji wants to saffronise the entire country. A Muslim was the one who designed the Indian Tricolour. There are other colours in the Tricolour, why choose only orange? It will be better if their jersey is based on the Tricolour," India Today quoted SP MLA in Maharashtra Assembly Abu Asim Azmi as saying.

This is the design of the Indian cricket team's jersey likely to be donned by the players in their match against England. ANI

"Ever since the Modi government has come to power, it has been playing saffron politics. The Tricolour should be respected and national harmony should be promoted. This government wants to saffronise everything," Congress MLA Naseem Khan further said in the Assembly.

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On the other hand, an ICC source told ANI that the idea behind the orange jersey was to have one for the Indian cricket team which was different from blue, the colour which England team players also sport.

"Colour options were given to BCCI and they chose the colour combination that looked the best to them. The whole idea is to be different from blue as England also wears the same shade of blue as India," the ICC source told ANI.

"Also, the design (orange) is taken from India's old T20 jersey, which had orange in it. This jersey was designed from something that already existed and not something completely new that fans don't identify with," the source further said.

Before the beginning of the World Cup, the ICC had introduced a new rule asking teams to sport home and away jerseys in the tournament.

The ICC rule reads: "For televised ICC events all participating teams will be required to provide for two different coloured kits, except for the host country who has a preference in the choice of colour and may, if it chooses to do so, provide only one coloured kit to be worn in all matches throughout the event. In advance of the event the teams will be notified which coloured kit will be worn in each match."

Thus, South Africa, which generally sports green jersey with yellow shade, wore the reverse, which was dominated by yellow with patches of green in the team's match against Bangladesh.

Afghanistan, which generally sports a blue jersey, wore one with more areas of red added to blue.

With inputs from ANI