Juhi Chawla and Shah Rukh Khan decided to enter the Indian Premier League (IPL) arena during its inaugural season in 2008 with their team Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR). The first few seasons were quite difficult for the team as they faced many losses and after two seasons where the team struggled during the IPL season, Juhi declared that the team’s black jerseys were bringing them bad luck.
In the documentary Living with KKR, Juhi’s husband and co-owner of the team, Jay Mehta, shared that after they lost miserably in many matches, Juhi started believing that the black jerseys had to go. In the documentary Living with KKR, “After we came back from South Africa with our famous losing streak, Juhi, suddenly, tells me ‘I am superstitious about black as a colour and I think black is unlucky for KKR.” As Shah Rukh and Jay heard this, their first reaction was, “What nonsense!”
Juhi appeared in the documentary and said, “I had something about that black. I was like ‘this colour is not contributing to the energy of the team and when things were really bad, I mean, I really came down hard on this. I said ‘no, we have to change the color, not black’.” After this season, the team switched from black to purple for their jersey colours.
At an earlier event organised by Gujarat Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Juhi said that she wasn’t happy with the jersey colours from the beginning. “We didn’t know anything about running a cricket franchise, and I remember going to Shah Rukh’s home for meetings, where literally from putting the jingle together, to thinking of the uniform they’ll have, everything was done in house. I still remember, he made it black and gold, Shah Rukh, and I was not happy with it. I thought ‘what is this black and gold?’ Because black is considered inauspicious, isn’t it? But they worked more than I did,” she recalled.
For the 18th season of IPL, KKR has brought the vintage jersey back. They launched a ‘retro kit’ for fans with the black and gold jersey and it sold out from the official store within minutes.