Yuvraj, seen with Brett Lee, sports the Coke logo on his right sleeve at an IPL match.

New Delhi, May 4: As the Knights, Kings, Devils and Royals battle it out on the field in the Indian Premier League, the cola giants are locked in an exciting contest off it.

Coca-Cola India has picked up the sponsorship for Kings XI Punjab, Preity Zinta’s team.

The result: Captain Yuvraj Singh and team-mate Sreesanth, brand ambassadors for rival PepsiCo, are playing the hot new championship sporting the Coke logo.

Pepsi can’t be happy to have its stars hijacked but has no choice but to grin and swallow it. As in any other sport, IPL players are allowed to wear the logos of the team sponsors.

Coke has its own reasons for making the Punjab team its own.

“Punjab is an important market for the cola giants. To win mileage in this territory, Coca-Cola India has decided to associate with the local cricket team there. This relationship with the Punjab team has given it an edge over Pepsi, as it has managed to put its logo on the helmet and jersey of cricketers who are brand ambassadors of its rival,” an industry analyst said.

Pepsi has got its share of the IPL pie, though. It has the rights to in-stadia advertising and has its logo sported at award ceremonies as the league’s official sponsor for the next five years.

Being official sponsor, though, doesn’t give the New York-headquartered company commercial time on air. That has again been booked by Coke, which is the on-air associate sponsor of the IPL. It is the only soft drinks company to get the rights to the commercial breaks during matches.

Summer is when the cola companies’ advertising and publicity drive peaks because the demand for soft drinks shoots up with the temperature. Some 60-70 per cent of cola sales are clocked during the hot months.

So the timing of the IPL — which started in April and closes on June 1 — is just right for them.

The Indian soft drinks market is estimated to be over 10 billion bottles. The metros and northern states like Punjab and Haryana account for most of the cola sales. Orange-flavoured drinks sell more in the southern markets while mango drinks are popular in the west.