Indian Badminton League to take off next year

November 11, 2012

Saina


Mumbai, November 11: Five Indian players, including Olympic Games bronze medalist Saina Nehwal, were announced on Saturday as the icon players of five of the six city-based franchise outfits in the USD 1 million prize money Indian Badminton League (IBL) to be held next year.

Apart from Saina, whose base price has been fixed at USD 50,000, London Games men’s singles quarterfinalist Parupalli Kashyap, world bronze medal winning women’s pair Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponnappa and up-and-coming P V Sindhu were named as the team icons at the launch of the League here.

The IBL, which is a joint initiative of the Badminton Association of India (BAI) and its commercial partner Sporty Solutionz Private Ltd, is to be held in six cities across the country from June 24 to July 11, 2013, and has the blessings of the world body, BWF, which has provided it a clear window in the annual calendar, organisers said.

Eight cities — Delhi, Nagpur, Pune, Mumbai, Lucknow, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore — have been shortlisted for the city-based franchises and six of them would be up for open sales in the first year with Rs 3.5 crore as the base price.

Each team will have the liberty to have up to four foreign players with two available to play in the best-of-five ties on the format of the Sudirman Cup world team championships.

“Malaysia has already confirmed to send all its players (including Olympic silver medal winner Lee Chong Wei). The BAI has already approached the Chinese authorities,” said Sporty Solutionz CEO Ashish Chadha at the media conference.

Asked why someone like Wei would accept a base price of USD 25,000, when Kashyap was getting at least double that as his fees, Chadha said the Malaysian star and all others would be put up for the players’ auction, where his price would be determined.

Present at the launch, Saina said, “It’s a historic moment for Indian badminton. The game has become bigger and that’s why this is happening. Like the IPL in cricket, there is a lot of interest and I hope it is really successful.”

Saina did not see any problem in accommodating the event in her busy schedule.

“There are so many tournaments in the calendar. It (playing in IBL) should not be a problem. I am confident IBL will make the game even more popular among the masses,” said Saina.

One of the moving forces behind the League, former international and Maharashtra Badminton Association president Pradeep Gandhe, said the tournament differed a bit from IPL in that all the teams would play in one city for two days and then all would move on to play in another.

“Like in the Sudirman Cup, each tie would have men’s singles, women’s singles, men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles matches,” he added.

Chadha said that there would be prize money only for the winners and runners-up in the ratio of 65:35. “This is the business model we are adopting. The winners of the title would recover most of their investment in the first year itself as the winning prize works out to Rs 3.5 crore and the expenses, including acquisition of team, players salary and other running expenses, would be around Rs 5 crore,” he said.

“We will be announcing the franchise teams in the coming weeks and the players’ auction would be held in March,” he said, adding each team will have eleven players including one under 20 years of age. “Players would be contracted for five years. They would be with one franchise for two years,” he said.



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Agencies
May 9,2020

Tokyo, May 9: As the world continues to grapple with coronavirus pandemic, the organisers of Tokyo Game Show have cancelled 2020 showpiece event.

TGS 2020 was slated to be played from September 24 to September 27 at the Makuhari Messe convention center. However, there now talks going on for holding an online event instead.

According to the Verge, this is the first time that TGS has ever been cancelled since it started in 1996.

TGS 2020 gained more attention because of its status as the last major trade show before the launch of the upcoming next-gen consoles, the Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5.

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Agencies
August 7,2020

Islamabad, Aug 7: Former Pakistani fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar, known for his blistering deliveries on the cricket field, recently baffled many with a deadly off-field bouncer by claiming he is willing to eat grass if it enabled an increase in budget for his country's Army!

"If Allah ever gives me the authority, I will eat grass myself but I will increase the budget of the army," said Akhtar in an interview with ARY News.

The 'Rawalpindi Express', considered the fastest bowler in history said he does not understand why the civilian sector cannot work in collaboration with the Armed forces.

"I will ask my army chief to sit with me and make decisions. If the budget is 20 per cent, I will make it 60 per cent. If we insult each other, the loss is ours only," the once feared fast-bowler said.

Akthar had also claimed to ARY News interview that he was willing to take a bullet for his country and had turned down a county stint just because he wanted to fight the 1999 Kargil War.

Ties between India and Pakistan have been strained in the recent months over several issues, the latest being Pakistan's attempt to broach in the UNSC the issue of Kashmir on the first anniversary of the India's move to scrap the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and to split the erstwhile state into two union territories .

Pakistan also has not been in a good financial position and under prime minister Imran Khan, himself an all rounder cricketer, has added nearly USD 22 billion, that is 35 per cent to the nation's international debt pile in the last two years, according to an Asia Times report in July.

While Pakistan recently received USD 1.39 billion from the IMF to cushion the economic shocks caused due to COVID-19 outbreak, Akthar had a few months ago proposed that a joint cricket match be played between India and Pakistan to raise funds to fight the coronavirus. The suggestion that was put down by cricketers in India.

Meanwhile the 'Pindi boy' whose deadly pace and bounce was once dreaded by batsmen had recently taken to Twitter to deny former India cricketer Virender Sehwag's claim of sledging him.

Sehwag along with other Indian crickerters such as Harbhajan Singh and even Rahul Dravid had been at the receiving end of Akthar's sledging and antics during their playing days.

"Yes, totally self made story by him. Mujhe yeh bol k bach k jana kidhar tha us nay," Akthar tweeted to a report in which Sehwag claimed that he had sledged the 'Rawalpindi Express' by telling him that Sachin Tendulkar was his father.

During an awards ceremony Sehwag had recounted that fed up with Akthar's sledging and retaliated by telling him to say the same things to Tendulkar, who smashed the 'Pindi boy' for a six. Sehwag quipped that he told Akthar then that "Baap baap hota hai".

In the recent ARY interview, asked about the allegation made against him by former India cricketer Virendra Sehwag that he makes pro-India comments for greater following on social media channels, Akhtar said, "I cannot talk on the basis of hate." 

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News Network
May 30,2020

New Delhi, May 30: Former world chess champion Viswanathan Anand will be finally reaching India late on Saturday after being stuck in Germany for over three months due to the travel restrictions imposed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Yes.. Anand will be returning today," the chess maestro's wife Aruna told PTI on Saturday morning. Anand, who boarded an Air India flight (AI-120) from Frankfurt on Friday night will reach Bengaluru via Delhi.

He is expected to reach Bengaluru at 1.15 pm. The five-time world champion will undergo 14 days quarantine as per rules laid down by the Karnataka government.

"He will complete quarantine procedures and come to Chennai as per protocol," Aruna Anand said. The flights from Germany are only scheduled to land only in Delhi and Bengaluru.

The chess ace was in Germany to play in the Bundesliga chess league and was to return to India, but was forced to stay put after the COVID-19 outbreak disrupted sporting schedules across the globe, apart from restricting movement.

He was staying near Frankfurt and was doing online commentary for the Candidates tournament which was called off mid-way due to the pandemic and led the Indian team in the Online Nations Cup early this month.

Anand had been in touch with his family in Chennai on a regular basis via video calls and kept himself busy with chess-related work.

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