BSAM ...

 

 

BSAM to organize Videocon Billiards Premier League 2014

 

Sundeep Gulati - India

 

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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Last modified: Monday August 04, 2014 19:22:26 +0530