After two year gap, Indian Badminton League will return in 2016

New Delhi: BAI president Akhilesh Das Gupta on Thursday announced the return of the Indian Badminton League after a two-year gap. The IBL will be a 15-day affair from January 2-17, featuring six teams which will battle it out in the USD 1 million competition. [caption id=“attachment_2258054” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Saina Nehwal. File photo: PTI[/caption] Present at the season two launch were ace shuttlers Saina Nehwal, K Srikanth and P V Sindhu. Das Gupta assured that the tournament will be bigger and better than the inaugural edition. “It’s a proud moment for me today as I announce the second edition of the Indian Badminton League and which I can assure you, will be bigger and larger than the first edition,” he said. The conference even witnessed the introduction of Shuttle India - the six city school program to identify young talent at the grassroot level. The program will be played across various schools in all six franchisee cities and each city will witness matches being played among the young students in both boys and girls category. Speaking on the Shuttle India initiative, Gupta added, “The idea of creating a badminton league was not only to get international players on the same platform but even create a platform for the young guns at grassroots level to take the sport as a career and Shuttle India is an initiative towards that goal. With schools participating from across six cities, we are expecting huge participation amongst the students who are already getting formal training of the same at a local level.” Two franchise owners have already been announced with Delhi being bought by Infinite Computer Solutions, and Lucknow will again have the Sahara Parivar who are known for their contribution to Indian sports. “The rest of the franchisees are in advance talks and the announcement for the same to be made soon,” said BAI in a statement. PTI