Mumbai: World No. 9 Kidambi Srikanth bagged the highest amount of bid as an Indian in the Premier Badminton League, as it sees its second edition grabs for iconic players to be drafted to each of its six teams in New Delhi on Tuesday.
The 23 year old was bought for Rs 51 lakh by the Awadhe Warriors thus taking pride in being the highest bidded for Indian in the auction.
Carolina Marin surfaced as the costliest buy, by the Hyderabad Hunters in the second edition with Rs 61.5 lakh.
One-third of the maximum permitted kitty was spent by Hyderabad in order to get rid of the tussel with Delhi to grab Marin.
Chennai Smashers played a smart card and bagged Olympic silver medalist PV Sindhu with a figure of Rs. 39 lakh inspite of her avid performance in the Rio Games.
“We were ready to pay the highest permissible amount that an icon player can fetch i.e Rs 65 lakhs for her as we really wanted to retain her in our team and so we didn’t bid for other players and I think in the end we were lucky to get her for Rs 39 lakhs,” Chennai owner Vijay Prabhakaran said.
Saina Nehwal failed to create as much buzz as the League’s first edition, was unsold in the first bidding round, this retained by Awadhe Warriors, with a baseline figure of Rs 33 lakh.
Rs 1.93 crore was given by each of the six teams to acquire the iconic 50 out of 154 players. The base price for the icons were Rs 33 lakh, the second best was Rs 17 lakh.
Each team had the freedom to choose 10 players, out of which six could be foreigners.
Commencement of the league to take place from January 1-14, 2017 in a round-robin format, with each team given an opportunity to clash against the other.
Each round will be of five matches: two men’s singles, one women’s singles, one men’s doubles and one mixed doubles. Each tie to send forth at least two Indians apart from the star player. The matches will be three-game affairs, each of which summing to only 11 points.
“Thanks to the spectacular performance of Indian players at the Olympics, the game has added a large number of new viewers, so our effort will be to make the league as exciting and interesting as possible,” said Pullela Gopichand, Indian badminton national coach, who is also the chief adviser of the PBL. “We are bringing in certain innovations in the format of the League to make it even more spectator-friendly.”
List of players in the League-
Awadhe Warriors – V Shem Goh, Srikanth Kidambi (51 lakhs), Savitree Amitrapai, Saina Nehwal (33 lakhs), Wong Wing Ki Vincent, Rituparna Das, Bodin Isara, Markis Kido, Prajakta Sawant, Aditya Joshi
Mumbai Rockets – Lee Yong Dae, Sung Ji Hyun, Nadiezda Zieba, Ajay Jayaram, Prannoy HS (22 lakhs), Nipitphon Phusnhphupet, Manu Atri, Abhishek Yelegar, Vrushali G, Mohita Sehdev
Delhi Acers – Son Wan Ho, Jan o Jorgensen (59 lakhs), Jwala Gutta (10 lakhs), Nithchaon Jindapol, Ivan Sozonov, Vladimir Ivanov, Akshay Dewalkar, K. Maneesha, Akarshi Kashyap, Siril Verma
Hyderabad Hunters – Carolina Marin (61.5 lakhs), Wee Kiong Tan, Chau Hoi Wah, Rajiv Ouseph, Sai Praneeth, Satwik Sairaj, Sameer Verma, Krishna Priya, Meghna J, Tan Boon Heong
Bengaluru Blasters – Viktor Axelsen (39 lakhs), Yoo Yeon Seong, Ashwini Ponnappa (15 lakhs), Porntip Buranaprasertsuk, Ruthvika Gadde, Sourabh Verma, Pranaav Chopra, Ko Sung Hyun, Sikki Reddy, Boonsak Ponsana
Chennai Smashers – Tommy Sugiarto, P V Sindhu (39 lakhs), Gabby Adcock, Tanongsak S, P Kashyap (8 lakhs), Chris Adcock, Mads Pieler Kolding, B Sumeeth Reddy, Ramya Tulasi, Arundhati Pantawane
The winner to take home Rs 3 core, the second place is allotted Rs 1.5 crore and the losing semi finalists a worthy Rs 75 lakh each.