Ashwini Ponnappa

Ashwini Ponnappa commanded a price. The Commonwealth Games gold medallist (in the women’s doubles alongside Jwala Gutta) has star value and provided the glamour quotient to the inaugural edition of the Karnataka Badminton League (KBL). She fetched a whopping Rs 2.5 lakh for her appearance in the first week of the league, which runs from November 5 to 19.

“She has a star value and will keep the rest of the team motivated. That is why we bid for her,” says Vishal Vincent Tony of the Aratt Fighters, the franchisee that successfully bid for Ashwini. “Her presence in the team, even if it is only going to be for the league stages (Ashwini leaves for the Hong Kong Super Series on November 12) should do wonders to the morale of youngsters in the team. She is only participating in the mixed doubles category. We have also bagged Jacqueline Rose Kunnath, who commanded the second highest bid of Rs 1.06 lakh to play the women’s singles, there is no reason why we cannot do well,” says Vincent.

Beside the two women stars, Rohan Castellino was picked to provide the thrust in the men’s singles.

If Aratt Fighters spent huge sums on women players, franchisees such as Fly Power Warriors and Li Ning Lions did not invest on big names and instead opted for a balanced team. “This being the inaugural year, there was a lot of apprehension and uncertainty. We chose a couple of young guns to deliver for us and hopefully they will,” says Choudhary, a member of the Fly Power Warriors, for whom Rajas Jawalkar and Sindhu Bharadwaj will lead the singles challenge in the men’s and women’s categories respectively.

P. Kumar of Kumar Sports, owner of the Li Ning Lions, said: “Li Ning is the leading shuttle-cock manufacturer in China and is making its presence felt in the Indian market. This league could provide the perfect platform. We are happy with the team.”

Agarwal and Bhandari joined hands to form the AB Chargers and picked the top ranked men’s singles player, Mohit Kamath, alongside women’s player Mahima Aggarwal and doubles specialist Vineeth Manuel. “There were some hiccups but overall, I am quite satisfied,” says Bhandari after the players auction that lasted nearly six hours.

With Aditya Prakash and Prakash Jolly going to White Peacock and K2 Smashers respectively, one felt the Hennur Banaswadi Cosmopolitan Club (HB Challengers) were the ones to lose out, with just Rishiket Yeligar and B.S. Phalgun leading the challenge in the men’s singles. But Srinivasan (Secretary) and Krishna Kumar (coach), who once formed a strong doubles combination with George Thomas in the ’90s, felt the players would deliver. “We win some and lose some. It is a learning curve for us. We will be better equipped next time,” says Manjesh, who represented the K2 Smashers.

“There were too many caps,” was the general feeling and the phenomena resulted in active players like Poorvisha Ram and Ruth Misha going unsold. On the flip side were the withdrawal of the eighth team, Team Victor, from the fray and some internationally renowned names like Aravind Bhat and Anup Sridhar giving the league a miss for varied reasons.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / MetroPlus> Life & Style / by Avinash Nair / November 02nd, 2011