Sindhu and Saina stay with old teams
hyderabad — Top Indian shuttlers PV Sindhu and Saina Nehwal were retained by their respective franchises at the players auction of the Premier Badminton League (PBL) on Monday.
Each retained player gets a 25 per cent hike in his/her salary from last year, while players who are bought by using the ‘RightTo-Match’ card only get a 10 per cent increase from the last year’s selling price.
So, defending champions Chennai Smashers retained Olympic silver medallist Sindhu for Rs4.8 million. The 22-yearold, who recently won a silver at the World Championship at Glasgow and clinched the Korea Super Series, had fetched Rs3.9 million during the last auction.
Saina, who had returned with a bronze medal from Glasgow, was retained for Rs 4.1 million. She was retained by Awadhe Warriors for the base price of Rs 3.3 million last season.
Srikanth, who clinched back-toback titles at Indonesia and Australia, will also play for his old team Awadhe Warriors after they used the ‘Right To Match’ card. He will now make Rs5.6 million.
Among others, doubles players — India’s Satwik Sairaj, Korea’s Lee Young Dae and Russia’s Vladimir Ivanov — were all retained by their old teams and were not part of the auction.
According to the rules, old teams can retain one player and the franchise can use one right to match, while new teams can use one right to match for players who are making their debut in PBL.
The auction started after more than two hours delay and the first player to go under the hammer was the women’s world no. 1 Tai Tzu Ying, one of the nine icon players, who was bought by Ahmedabad Smash Masters for Rs5.2 million. — PTI