Cricket Australia (CA) has received a swift and brutal response to the launch of its new national team kits for the summer.
The Test kit modelled by spinner Nathan Lyon in promotional material drew a particularly strong response.
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Just like the traditional all-whites of Wimbledon have slowly been watered down, the once-pristine cricket whites of Test cricket are also a thing of the past.
That has reached a whole new level due to the sponsorship-laden uniforms to be worn by the men’s and women’s national teams in the 2023-24 season.
Toyota has upgraded its sponsorship deal to become the major sponsor for the men’s teams, sitting alongside other CA sponsors that include Asics, HCLTech and Commonwealth Bank.
It comes after a reported 12-month search for a new major sponsor following the end of the controversial five-year deal with Alinta Energy in June.
That partnership ended in the wake of comments from Test skipper Pat Cummins who declared CA should make the climate a “priority” when considering “who we want to invite into being part of cricket”.
Both Alinta and Cummins denied the comments had anything to do with the deal ending, and confirmed the decision had already been made, but the Test captain was cast as a “woke” villain by some critics.
Now Toyota and information technology company HCLTech have both “upgraded their partnerships with Cricket Australia to include displaying their global brands on the iconic Australian playing shirts”, a CA press release read on Tuesday.
Yet the “iconic Australian shirts” are becoming more and more a billboard and didn’t sit well with a number of fans on social media.
It seems the thick, black outline of the Toyota logo is particularly jarring to some.
“Maybe the logo could have been more of a Yaris, rather than a Landcruiser size”, was one comment.
“Can we get uniforms with bigger sponsorship logos please? Maybe the players could get big Toyota insignia tattooed on their faces?” quipped another.
“Who is the sponsor? Logo so small it’s hard to read,” was another remark.
Journalist Neroli Meadows also weighed into the discussion.
“Just me, or the rather large Toyota logo in the middle of a Test kit a bit too much?” Meadows posed.
“It’s not you,” was a quick reply from cricket stats guru Ric Finlay.
“Yep, hate it,” was another response.
“Yep looks ridiculous,” replied a third.
Another comment delved deep into cricket parlance by stating the new uniform “could almost act as a sight screen”.
Yet another comment made a simple assumption, we suspect, writing: “Can see it from space.”
Toyota has been a partner of CA since 2012 and the deal has included wide use of hybrid vehicles by the governing body, a note to Cummins’ views on climate change.
The men’s Test team was sponsored by Qantas for the recent Ashes series in England.
– with NCA Newswire