PV Sindhu, Tai Tzu Ying , Sai Praneeth among top draws in PBL

World Champion PV Sindhu, world no one Tai Tzu Ying and Sai Praneeth will be among 154 players who will go under the hammer as the players' auction of the fifth season of the Premier Badminton League will be held on Tuesday. Others in the top bracket are likely to be World No. 8 men’s doubles pair of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty, who have been rewriting Indian badminton history and in-form Lakshya Sen, who won four titles in the past two months. The PBL, organized under the aegis of the Badminton Association of India, will see a total of 74 shuttlers from India participating.

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Commonwealth Games bronze medallists Ashwini Ponnappa and Sikki Reddy will be looking to stamp their authority along with the in-form Sourabh Verma and Parupalli Kashyap.  Rising stars Gayatri Gopichand, Ashmita Chaliha, and Rituparna Panda will also be making their PBL debut this season among the promising talent to watch out for in this pan-India badminton extravaganza to be held from January 20, 2020, to February 9, 2020. While each franchise will have a purse of INR 2 crore with not exceeding INR 77 lakh for each player, the teams will comprise a maximum of 6 foreign players and a minimum of 3 female shuttlers in a squad of not more than 11. The format of the upcoming edition of the league remains the same with each tie consisting of five matches - two Men Singles Matches, one Women Singles Match, one Men Doubles Match and one Mixed Doubles Match.

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The 21-day event will witness seven teams- Awadhe Warriors (Lucknow), Bengaluru Raptors (Bengaluru), Mumbai Rockets (Mumbai), Hyderabad Hunters (Hyderabad), Chennai Superstarz (Chennai), North Eastern Warriors (North East) and Pune 7 Aces (Pune) slug it out for a prize purse of INR 6 crore as the Season 5 matches will be played in Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad and Lucknow. The PBL Season 5 would be telecast Live on Star Sports and streamed live on Hotstar. Live updates will be posted on Premier Badminton League social media handles.

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 PBL-5 - At a Glance

Total number of Teams: 7

Total number of Venues: 4 (Hyderabad, Lucknow, Bengaluru, Chennai)

Total number of players: 154

Total number of Indians: 74

Total number of foreigners: 80

Auction purse for each Team: INR 2 crore

Player cap: INR 77 lakh

Minimum Players per Team: 9

Maximum Players per Team: 11

Maximum Number of Foreign Players per Team: 6

Minimum Number of female shuttlers per Team: 3

Total Prize Money: INR 6 crores

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