Keep calm and celebrate like a #Prince – The story behind Islamabad United nicknames

Team manager Rehan ul Haq says the nicks allow the players to develop a bond of friendship

Faizan Lakhani

February 11, 2019

Rumman Raees' 'royal' celebration went viral during PSL 2017

DUBAI: Usually, the teams participating in different tournaments have names of their players printed on the back of their respective T-shirts. But Pakistan Super League franchise Islamabad United wanted to do something different.

Instead of their names, United players have their very own nicknames as hashtags which, according to team manager Rehan ul Haq, allows the team to develop a bond.

“It lightens up the mood during training. Lots of jokes are cracked on nicknames and that allows the team to develop a bond. Our team has a very, very strong bond, the players enjoy friendships with each other,” Rehan told Geo.tv.

“Nicknames/hashtags were started by us in season 2. I got this idea after season 1 because our guys kept referring to each other using nicknames,” he said.

The nicknames and hashtags of Islamabad United are also used by fans on various social media forums to refer to the players.

The most successful nicknames have been #Prince (Rumman Raees) and #Mastana (Zafar). So is #Patakha (Sahibzada Farhan).

“When we introduced it in season 2, our players loved the idea. They all started calling each other by their hashtags. For example, some people still call Shadab ‘Chotu’,” Rehan added.

Here’s the complete list of players with their nicknames and hashtags as used by Islamabad United.

Luke Ronchi #Shikari

Faheem Ashraf #Yoyo

Shadab Khan #Superstar

Ian Bell RHB #Thand

Asif Ali #Laparu

Mohammad Sami #Bullet

Rumman Raees #Prince

Samit Patel #Pehalwan

Phil Salt #Tarka

Hussain Talat #Shahzada

Zafar Gohar #Mastana