Premier Badminton League: Carolina Marin Tops Price List, Kidambi Srikanth Costliest Among Indians

Olympic champion Carolina Marin of Spain turned out to be the costliest buy of the second edition of the Premier Badminton League (PBL) while Kidambi Srikanth fetched the highest amount by an Indian at the players auction, here on Tuesday.

Marin was bagged by Hyderabad Hunters for Rs 61.5 lakhs, while Srikanth was bought for Rs 51 lakhs by the Awadhe Warriors.

Olympic silver medallist P V Sindhu was unlucky to fetch an amount of just Rs 39 lakhs despite being the best Indian iconic player after her performance at the Rio Games.

Saina Nehwal, who had fetched one of the highest amount during the first edition, was unsold in the first round of bidding and so she was retained by her previous franchise Awadhe Warriors for a base price of Rs 33 lakhs.

South Korean woman shuttler Sung Ji Hyun emerged as the second costliest player as she went to Mumbai Rockets for Rs 60 lakhs, while Denmark's Jan O'Jorgensen fetched Rs 59 lakhs from defending champions Delhi Acers.

Denmark's Viktor Axelsen, the Olympic bronze medallist, was bought for a price of Rs 39 lakhs by Bengaluru Blasters, while Wan Ho Son fetched the same price from the Delhi franchise.

Among other top Indian names, H S Prannoy and Ajay Jayaram were bought by Mumbai Rockets for Rs 22 lakhs and 19 lakhs respectively, B Sai Praneeth was taken by Hyderabad for Rs 21 lakhs and Chinese Taipei champion Sourabh Varma was fetched for 13 lakhs by Bangaluru.

Doubles specialists Jwala Gutta was bought for Rs 10 lakhs by Delhi, while Ashwini Ponnappa was roped in by the Blasters after using the right to match, following a bid by Delhi for the same amount.

However, the highlight of the day was the low price that Sindhu fetched at the auction.

Chennai Smashers, who had Sindhu in their roster even last year, smartly played the waiting game and didn't bid for a single player until her name popped out.

They got her without much hankering for Rs 39 lakh which has to go down as the bargain buy at the auction.

"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.

There was fierce bidding for Marin between Hyderabad and Delhi and eventually the Spaniard was bagged by the Hunters, spending one-third of their maximum permitted kitty on just one player.

Fifty out of the 154 players, who went under the hammer today, were acquired by the six teams in fray, shelling out their kitty of Rs 1.93 crore each. The base price for the highest bracketed players, the icons, was Rs 33 lakh while the next best were earmarked at Rs 17 lakh. Each team could acquire a maximum of 10 players, including six foreigners.

The League will be played from January 1-14, 2017 in a round-robin format, with each team clashing against each other once. Each such clash will comprise of five matches: two men's singles, one women's singles, one men's doubles and one mixed doubles. Each tie will need to feature at least two Indians, apart from the icon player.

The matches will be three-game affairs, with each game curtailed to only 11 points.

The winners of the League will take home Rs 3 crore while the runners-up Rs 1.5 crore. The losing semifinalists will get richer by Rs 75 lakh each.