New Delhi, Jan 4 (IANS): The new Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise on Tuesday debuted on social media, requesting fans to suggest a good name for Team Lucknow. The two new IPL teams, Lucknow and Ahmedabad, are yet to officially reveal their names and Team Lucknow has already begun making news by acquiring a star-studded coaching set-up including former India opener Gautam Gambhir and Zimbabwe great Andy Flower.

The Lucknow IPL team received a warm welcome by gathering over 20,000 followers after tweeting a few updates related to Andy Flower and Gambhir. The franchise posted a photo of Gambhir, "Welcome to the official Twitter profile of Lucknow IPL team."

The cricketer-turned-politician Gambhir retweeted it with a caption, "Hindustan Swagat karo Lucknow ka."

The Kolkata-based group, who previously ran the Rising Pune Supergiant team in 2016 and 2017 IPLs, had bought the rights of the Lucknow franchise for a whopping Rs 7,090 crore in October. The owner of the franchise Sanjiv Goenka had welcomed Gambhir into the yet-to-be-named Lucknow team.

The 40-year-old Gambhir played 58 Tests, 147 ODIs, and 37 T20Is for India and was a member of the 2007 Men's T20 World Cup and 2011 Men's Cricket World Cup-winning teams. Gambhir featured in the IPL since its inception in 2008 till 2018 in which he represented the Delhi Daredevils (now Capitals) and Kolkata Knight Riders in 154 matches, scoring 4217 runs at an average of 31.01, including 36 half-centuries.

After retiring from the game, Gambhir has been serving as the Member of Parliament from the East Delhi constituency for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) since 2019 apart from being a commentator and expert.