Indian youngsters Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, Lakshya Sen and world No 1 women’s singles player Tai Tzu Ying were the headline-grabbers in the auction on Tuesday for the fifth season of Premier Badminton League.
Earlier, Hyderabad Hunters had retained PV Sindhu for 77 lakhs. Other retained players include B Sai Praneeth for Bengaluru Raptors, B Sumeeth Reddy for Chennai Super Starz, Beiwen Zhang for Awadhe Warriors and Kim Gi Jung for Mumbai Rockets.
Sen has a breakthrough year in the senior circuit and is currently ranked 41st in the world. After a serious bidding war from a base price of Rs 10 lakhs, he moved to Chennai Superstarz for Rs 36 lakhs.
Doubles player Satwiksairaj has had a great season in the international circuit and expectedly, was a player in high demand. Starting with a base price of Rs 25 lakh, plenty of teams bid for his services before Chennai Superstarz bought him for Rs 62 lakh.
Interestingly, Chennai also went for doubles player Manu Attri while also retaining Sumeeth Reddy earlier: Attri and Sumeeth are regular partners on the circuit, and the addition of Satwik bolstered their doubles squad. They also roped in highly-rated doubles player Gabby Adcock while her partner on and off the court Chris Adcock moved to Pune 7 Aces.
Chennai built a squad with exciting young talents as Gayatri Gopichand was also snapped up earlier before Sen and Satwiksairaj.
The rechristened Superstarz were the busiest franchise but the biggest bid of the day came from Pune and defending champions Bengaluru Raptors, who raised the bar up to Rs 77 lakhs (the maximum amount for a player) for Chinese Taipei’s Tai Tzu. Raptors, who will be without the services of former world No 1 Srikanth Kidambi, were the lucky team to have the services of Tai Tzu after a draw of lots.
Indian singles shuttlers Sourabh Verma and Parupalli Kashyap also generated interest, eventually going to Hyderabad Hunters and Mumbai Rockets respectively for Rs 41 lakhs and Rs 43 lakhs respectively.
Hong Kong open champion Lee Cheuk Yiu fetched a big amount; from base price of Rs 20 lakhs he went up to Rs 50 lakhs, he moved to NE Warriors. Malaysia’s Daren Liew also had plenty of interest, moving to Hunters for Rs 31 lakhs.
The two star shuttlers who went unsold after all rounds of bidding were Ashwini Ponnappa and one half of the world championships men’s doubles gold medal-winning pair, Mohammad Ahsan (Indonesia). His partner Hendra Setiawan was snapped up by Pune.
The PBL season 5 lost some sheen after London Olympics bronze medallist Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth pulled out of the event to focus on their international careers.
Other big names missing from the upcoming season are HS Prannoy, Sameer Verma, Viktor Axelsen, Andors Antonsen and Carolina Marin.
The PBL, organised by Badminton Association of India and conducted by Sportzlive, will be held from January 20 to February 9, 2020 and the matches to be played in Hyderabad, which replaced Delhi as well as Bengaluru, Chennai and Lucknow.
While each franchise will have a purse of 2 crore, the maximum amount that can be spent on one player will be Rs 77 Lakh. The teams can have a maximum of six foreign players and a minimum of three female shuttlers in a squad of not more than 11.
(You can find the full list of players bought here on our Twitter handle)
Retained players:
Awadhe Warriors – Beiwen Zhang – 39 lakhs
Bengaluru Raptors – B Sai Praneeth – 32 lakhs
Chennai Super Starz – B Sumeeth Reddy – 11 lakhs
Hyderabad Hunters – PV Sindhu – 77 lakhs
Mumbai Rockets – Kim Gi Jung – 45 lakhs
North Eastern Warriors – None
