Olympic gold medallist Carolina Marin expectedly fetched the highest bid in the players’ auction for the upcoming Premier Badminton League but circumstances forced >silver medallist P.V. Sindhu to settle for much less as six franchises geared up to cross swords from January 1 to 14, 2017.
Marin, the left-handed Spaniard, attracted a winning bid of Rs. 61.5 lakh from Hyderabad Hunters while Sindhu was retained by Chennai Smashers for Rs. 39 lakh.
Saina Nehwal, back in training after suffering a knee injury in the days leading to the Olympic Games in Rio, was understandably low on priority for the teams. In the first round, she went unsold. On the rebound, she attracted Rs. 33 lakh from Awadhe Warriors which spent Rs. 51 lakh on K. Srikanth.
Read: >PBL: Chennai Smashers happy with the team
Denmark’s Viktor Axelsen (Rs. 39L), Jan O Jorgensen (59L) and Korea’s Son Wan-Ho (39L) – ranked 5th, 4th, and 6th respectively – attracted high bids in keeping with the world rankings. The cap to bid for any player was Rs. 65 lakh and each team could spend up to 1.93 crore on the players.
The name of Sindhu, one of the 15 ‘icon’ players, came out of the hat quite late, by which time five franchises had spent on bagging icon players of their choice.
In fact, this worked in favour of Chennai which appeared keen to retain Sindhu, given her new-found status. Against only a token bid of Rs. 38.5 lakh for Sindhu, Chennai sealed the deal with a call of Rs. 39 lakh.
Sindhu looked pleased with the bid and said, “I am very happy to be back with Chennai. We have a stronger team than last time. But the new scoring format (best of three games of 11 points each) makes it very interesting.”
The teams (Players, Indians unless stated, and bid amount in Rs.):
Awadhe Warriors: Men's singles: K. Srikanth (51 lakh), Aditya Joshi (3 lakh); Women's singles: Saina Nehwal (33 lakh), Rituparna Das (6 lakh); Men’s doubles: Boodin Isara (Thailand, 17 lakh), V. Shem Goh (Malaysia, 33 lakh), Markis Kido (Indonesia, 10 lakh). Mixed doubles: Savitree Amitrapai (Thailand, 20 lakh) and Prajakta Sawant (3 lakh).
Bengaluru Blasters: Men's singles: Viktor Axelsen (Denmark, 39 lakh), Sourabh Varma (13 lakh), Boonsak Ponsana (Thailand, 10 lakh); Women's singles: Porntip Buranaprasertsuk (Thailand, 22 lakh), G. Ruthvika (7 lakh); Men's doubles: Yoo Yeon Seoung (Korea, 39 lakh), Ko Sung Hyun (Korea, 33 lakh), Pranav Chopra (10 lakh); Mixed doubles: Ashwini Ponnappa (15 lakh) and Sikki Reddy (5 lakh).
Chennai Smashers: Men's singles: Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk (Thailand, 30 lakh), Tommy Sugiarto (Indonesia, 26 lakh), P. Kashyap (8 lakh); Women's singles: P. V. Sindhu (39 lakh), Arundhati Pantawane (3 lakh); Men's doubles: Chris Adcock (England, 26 lakh), Mads Pieler Kolding (Denmark, 25 lakh), B. Sumeeth Reddy (5 lakh), Mixed doubles: Gabrielle Adcock (England, 26 lakh) and Ramya Tulasi (3 lakh).
Delhi Acers: Men's singles: Jan O Jorgensen (Denmark, 59 lakh), Son Wan-Ho (Korea, 39 lakh), Siril Verma (4 lakh); Women's singles: Nitchaon Jindapol (Thailand, 17 lakh), Akarshi Kashyap (3 lakh); Men's doubles: Vladimir Ivanov (Russia, 27 lakh), Ivan Sozonov (Russia, 17 lakh), Akshay Dewalkar (7 lakh); Mixed doubles: G. Jwala (10 lakh) and K. Maneesha (5 lakh).
Hyderabad Hunters: Men's singles: B. Sai Praneeth (21 lakh), Rajiv Ouseph (England, 17 lakh), Sameer Varma (11.50 lakh); Women's singles: Carolina Marin (Spain, 61.50 lakh), Krishna Priya (3 lakh); Men's doubles: Wee Kiong Tan (Malaysia, 33 lakh), Boon Heing Tan (Malaysia, 23 lakh), Satwik Sairaj (3 lakh); Mixed doubles: Chau Hoi Wah (Hong Kong, 17 lakh) and J. Meghna (3 lakh).
Mumbai Rockets: Men's singles: H. S. Prannoy (22 lakh), Ajay Jayaram (19 lakh) and Shreyansh Jaiswal (3 lakh); Women's singles: Sung Ji Hyun (Korea, 60 lakh), Vrushali (3 lakh), Men's doubles: Lee Yong Dae (Korea, 37.50 lakh), Nipitphon Phuangphuapet (Thailand, 17 lakh), Manu Atri (7 lakh); Mixed doubles: Nadiezda Zeiba (Poland, 18 lakh) and Mohit Sahdev (3 lakh).
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