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What's the story?
The Hyderabad Masters Badminton League, a league for players above the age of 35 years was kicked off with the player auction at the Country Club in Hyderabad that witnessed eight team owners involved in a battle to pick the best of players across the country.
The League will be contested across three days in a combination of the league stages and the knockout stages, which will be played in the doubles format.
In case you didn't know
The Hyderabad Masters Badminton League (HMBL) is a tournament slated to be held from the 21st-23rd September 2018 at the Kotla Vijay Bhaskar Indoor Stadium which is set to give a platform for the star players across the country to try their hand at the league.
In addition to the recognized players, the league will also welcome some of the best club-level players from various states in a bid to strengthen the player pool at the competition.
Heart of the Matter
The player auction, which was conducted by the former international player and current treasurer of HMBL Nirmala Kotnis witnessed a total of 80 female and close to 230 male shuttlers throwing their hat in the ring and going under the hammer.
Unlike a regular auction which has no fixed upper salary cap, this auction had a maximum cap of 100,000 points per player (bids were made through points), which was reached by eight players, whose services were bought for the maximum amount available.
The two groups were drawn by Dronacharya Awardee Shri Ganguly Prasad and the two groups were formed as below
Group A - BBA Titans, Hyderabad Nawabs, Mumbai Masters, Himalayan Rangers.
Group B - Flying Gravity, Smash Squad, Hyderabad Smashers, Enthu Shuttlers
The round-robin stages will see the eight teams go head to head while the top two teams will battle it out in the semifinals and then the finals. The winning team will go home richer by ₹6 lakh while the runners-up will fetch ₹3 lakh and the losing semifinalists, ₹1 lakh each.
What's Next?
The Masters league is sure to give rise to some riveting action as a unique mix of top players from the national level and club level will go head to head, which could make room for some interesting internal battles as well.
