No PBL ties in Lucknow this time
LUCKNOW Fans here won’t get a chance to watch world’s top shuttlers, including Olympic champions Carolina Marin and silver medalist PV Sindhu in action this time as the new edition of the Premier Badminton League hasn’t picked the state capital as one of its venues for its December-January event.
A decision to this effect was taken last year itself and other than Lucknow, cities like Guwahati, New Delhi and Chennai too won’t host the matches of nine teams this time.
The city of Pune will join the bandwagon to make the event a nine-team affair from this season, and the Pune team has been baptized as Pune Seven Aces and is owned by popular Bollywood actress, Taapsee Pannu and KRI.
The league, which offers a prize purse of Rs 6 crore was an eight-team competition last year with Delhi Dashers (Delhi), Mumbai Rockets (Mumbai), Awadhe Warriors (Lucknow), Hyderabad Hunters (Hyderabad), Chennai Smashers (Chennai), Bengaluru Raptors (Bengaluru) Ahmedabad Smash Masters (Ahmedabad) and North Eastern Warriors (North East) fighting for the top honours.
Hyderabad, led by 2016 Olympic Champion Carolina Marin, had claimed the winning purse last season. In season 3, the league attracted 60 world class players, including nine Olympic medallists and a pool of talented Indian players in the line-up for the league.
SELECTED
As many as four judokas of the Sports Authority of India, Lucknow has been selected in the Indan squad for the Commonwealth Judo Championship, scheduled to be held in India. They are: Vijay Kumar Yadav, Anupam Pal, Vishal Kumar Yadav and Vivek Yadav.
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STATE FOOTBALL
The Junior Under-19 Inter-Region State Football Championship will be held from October 21 to 28, at the Sigra Stadium in Varanasi. As many as 18 teams have confirmed their participation. On the basis of the event, state team for the Dr BC Roy Trophy Championship would be picked up, states a release.
TRIALS
The JNPG College would be conducting trials to pick its cricket team on Saturday at 11:00 am, at the JNPG College ground here.