The Indian Premier League which started in 2008 brought out many new elements in the T20 cricket in a bid to make it more entertaining for the masses. Few innovations were accepted while few were always debated fiercely.

One of the major viewing and talking points of the IPL always have been the cheer girls. There were plenty of backroom talk and a lot of controversies regarding the treatment of the cheer girls in past few seasons. There were racial and mistreating accusations from the cheer girls as well.

Another reason of protesting against the appointment of cheer girls was the issue of stereotyping a gender. Although the Cherrgirls added the oomph factor to telecast it was viewed as something which downgraded women.

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In the first IPL season, RCB was perhaps at the forefront of cheerleading when they had the White Mischief girls from the famed Washington Redskins cheerleading team, reckoned to be the best in the profession.

With their stylish boss, Vijay Mallya no longer at the head of business, the Bengaluru franchise has taken an extremely contrasting position. It has decided to do away with cheergirls totally.

The elimination of gender stereotyping is said to be one of the major motives for RCB to do this in this season. Most other franchises have already modified their cheerleaders in a more suitable way of the Indian cultures. The teams now try their best in adopting the regional flavor to project through the cheerleading.

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Instead of cheergirls, RCB will line up women and men dressed as Captain Henry Morgan, a Welsh privateer. Three of them will hold up banners on the podium with catchlines in Kannada, Hindi, and English which they will encourage the crowd to read aloud.

Explaining RCB’s motive behind the move, Amrit Thomas, chairman of Royal Challengers Sports Pvt Ltd, told TOI: “Cheerleading is an important part of T20 cricket. It is for the fans and it adds certain celebratory and fun aspects. As a team, we are on a journey. As the season was nearing, I thought we cannot have cheergirls in the form that we have them today. They have to be gender neutral. They need to be a progressive representation of men and women.”

He further added, “As marketers, we have a responsibility on how we portray women and their role in our marketing. In the end, collective marketing and advertising industry influence society. In that sense, we have to be mindful and responsible for it.”