BSAM to organize
Videocon Billiards Premier League 2014
The inaugural
Videocon Billiards Premier League is being organized by the
Billiards & Snooker Association of Maharashtra that will held in
Mumbai from August 16 to 24.
Ten teams,
comprising Maharashtra's billiards exponents, will feature in the
week long extravaganza that will be held at six clubs across South
Mumbai.
The winning team
will receive the top prize of 1.25 lakh, and the runners-up will
receive Rs. 90,000. In addition, the team finishing third will earn
Rs.60,000 and the fourth placed will receive Rs. 50,000.
"This is a sincere attempt to revive billiards
which has been overshadowed by snooker and other cue sports over the
years," explained Derek Sippy, BSAM honorary joint secretary.
"Billiards already has a formidable reputation
of producing amateur and professional world champions Wilson Jones,
Michael Ferreira, Geet Sethi and Pankaj Advani. But we realised that
players at large were drifting away from billiards owing to various
reasons."
Sippy added:
"Apart from the national championships, we do have the state
selection tournament and other billiards competitions organized
under the auspices of BSAM that keep the sport alive. But there was
a need to do much more. This is one of the first steps to prevent
billiards from reaching the abyss. Apart from the administrators the
players also realised the danger, and the beauty is they themselves
are involved in the effort, which in turn reflects their passion for
the beautiful game."
The tournament – of the players, by the
players, for the players – has attracted the country’s star cueists
who are specialists in the three-ball game.
Nine teams, backed by various sponsors,
are owned by former and current amateur players who feature on the
domestic circuit, with Shivaji Park Gymkhana being the only club to
own a team.
The 10 Teams are:
Tigers (owned by Bharat Mehta);
RK’s 7, The Rakish Kings (Rishabh
Kumar);
SPG Billiards Punters (Shivaji Park
Gymkhana);
MB’s Shooters (Mehernosh Billimoria);
RRockets (Raajeev Sharma);
SK’s Kannon Masters (Sanju Kothari);
Scorpions (Sanjiv Bijlani);
Race for Gold, The Team (Gurjit
Dhingra);
WJ Genii (Shyam Kotak); and
S.P. Young Guns (Prashant Mhatre)
The Format:
Each team will have seven players, selected by the owners from a
pool through lots, who have been given handicaps based on recent
form. The 10 teams will play a best-of-five round robin that will
include singles (100-up) and doubles ties. The top four that
aggregate the maximum points will qualify for the best-of-seven
frames play-off.
In the play-off, the leading team will
play the second placed in the 1st Qualifier and the winner of this
tie will qualify for the final. The winner of the Eliminator match
between the third and fourth placed teams will next face the loser
of the 1st Qualifier where the winner of this 2nd Qualifier tie will
enter the final.
The billiards league is the latest
addition to the growing number of leagues in the country following
the Indian Premier (cricket) League, Indian Badminton League, Hockey
India League, Indian Super (football) League, Pro Kabaddi League and
Mahesh Bhupathi’s and Vijay Amritraj’s tennis leagues.
Key players:
Tigers: Nalin Patel; Mahesh Jagdale; Hasan Badami; C.
Puranik.
S.P. Young Guns: Arun Agrawal; Vishal Gehani; K.K. Bhatia.
RK’s 7, The Rakish Kings: V. Subramanian, Rishabh Kumar, Nikhil
Saigal.
MB’s Shooters: Dhruv Sitwala, Amit Sapru,
RRockets: Siddharth Parikh; Manav Panchal; Abdur Rehman.
SK’s Kannon Masters: Dhvaj Haria; Hitesh Kotwani; Raj Khandwala.
WJ Genii: Jaiveer Dhingra; Chandresh Shah.
Race for Gold: Devendra Joshi; Rohan Jambusaria, Ronnie Daruwala.
Scorpions: Aditya Agrawal; Farhad Tengra; Sanjiv Bijlani; Philip
Daniel.
SPG Billiards Punters: Ashok Shandilya; Shekhar Surve; Cyrus Mistry;
Derek Sippy.
Venues & Dates:
Bombay Gymkhana: 16th, 17th, 23rd, 24th August.
NSCI: 18th, 20th August.
Matunga Gymkhana: 18th, 20th August.
CCI: 19th, 21st August.
PJ Hindu Gymkhana: 22nd August.
Shivaji Park Gymkhana: 22nd August.
Mumbai ::
04
August 2014
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