Bollywood actress and Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) co-owner Preity Zinta is someone who takes too much interest in the team. During the inaugural season of the tournament, when everything was new for all the owners, including Zinta, she ended up making a huge blunder in excitement.

During a podcast, the former chief executive officer of Kings XI Punjab Neil Maxwell revealed how Zinta had got them a kit in 2008 which was not suited to take the field. Maxwell had already requested her to get the kit from a sports apparel provider, but the co-owner wanted to take care of it herself.

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“I remember going in to try and cut a deal with Adidas or Reebok at the time, and Bollywood actress Preity Zinta, who I’ve got to say was one of the more intelligent [owners] and she learned quickly about cricket and how it operated… but at the time, there was just the naivety. She just said, ‘No, we’re not going with those uniform companies. I’m taking care of the players’ costumes,” Maxwell recalled on Top Order Podcast.

“I knew we were in trouble when that word came out. But I said: Preity, we can just sign up with a sports apparel provider, and we’ll get it done and dusted, the competition starts in two weeks. We need to have uniforms. Anyway, [she said], ‘No, no, no Neil, I’ve sent someone to Taiwan, we’ve got the material coming, and I’ve got a prototype arriving in seven days," he added.

When the kit arrived, players were in splits, and Zinta was left embarrassed. Former Australia cricketer Brett Lee, who featured for KXIP in the first season, also joked he will have to figure out how to bowl in this kit.

"I’ll never forget the day the prototype arrived. We were literally six days out from the competition, she pulled it out of the shopping bag, in front of… I think it was Brett Lee, Yuvraj Singh, and Sangakkara. She was so proud of these shirts, she pulled it out,” Maxwell recalled.

“And I’m not joking if you remember Michael Jackson’s Thriller, the red leather jackets that he wore [it was like that]. It had shoulder patches and zippers on it, the material… the boys were playing in 47-degree heat, and it was thicker than a suit. It had reflector stripes, the kind you wear on the road.

“The boys burst out laughing, and she was so insulted. I remember Brett saying, ‘Preity, look it’s fine. We’ve just got to work out one thing’. She said, ‘What’s that?’ And he goes, ‘just got to work out how to get my arm over to bowl a ball! Anyway, she threw it on the ground and stormed off, and we had four-five days to get the uniform sorted,” he added.

(WITH INPUTS OF TOP ORDER PODCAST)