Saina Nehwal sold to Hyderabad in IBL auction; LCW goes to Mumbai

BADMINTON: India’s top female shuttler, Saina Nehwal, was selected to represent the Hyderabad Hotshots for the upcoming Indian Badminton league (IBL), in the auctions held on Monday. In the first of its kind, the IBL auctions were held on Monday, and many top players across the world, went under the hammer.

London Olympic bronze-medallist, Saina Nehwal, was bought by home team Hyderabad hotshots for $120,000 (approx Rs. 71,27,796) , and Saina won’t be regretting this one.  World #1 Malaysian Lee Chong Wei was the wealthiest person to be sold, as Mumbai Masters bought him for $135,000. Top-ranked Indian Parupalli Kashyap was taken by Banga Beats $75,000 (Rs 4,455,622 approx).  Rising Indian shuttler, Pusarla Venkata Sindhu, was sold to Lucknow Warriors for $80,000 (Rs 4,752,664 approx).  Athens Olympic gold-medallist, Taufiq Hidayat, didn’t receive the expected attention, as he was sold for $15,000 to Hyderabad Hotshots. Lucknow Warriors took RMV Gurusaidutt for $30,000, while Sourabh Varma was taken by Pune Pistons at base price of $20,000. 

According to IANS, women’s doubles specialists - Jwala Gutta and Ashwini Ponappa, were sold below their base price of $50,000 to Delhi Smashers and Pune Pistons.  Since there are no women’s doubles matches in the IBL, the franchises requested the governing council of the tournament to halve the base price of the two players. Jwala went to Delhi for $31,000 and Ashwini was picked up by Pune for her reduced base price of $25,000.  IBL officials, however, said that they would compensate the two players. They will pay Jwala $19,000 and $25,000 to Ashwini.  IBL Franchise Owners : PVP Group (Hyderabad), BOP Group (Bangalore), Krrish Group (Delhi), Sahara (Lucknow), Burman family (Pune) and consortium of cricket legend Sunil Gavaskar, Telugu film star Akkineni Nagarjuna and former cricketer V Chamundeshwarnath (Mumbai).