Internet Desk: In its bid to popularise cue sports in the state, the West Bengal Billiards Association would organise its maiden premier league from August 8 to 13.
The nearly Rs 10 lakh prize money Bengal Premier League, to be staged at the Bengal Rowing Club, will feature nine top nationally and internationally ranked Indian marquee players.
They will be joined by 5 state-level players to form 9 teams consisting of 6 players in each. The three marquee players from West Bengal to feature in the event are Sourav Kothari, Brijesh Damani and Shahbaaz Khan.
“The total purse will be about Rs 10 lakh,” said WBBA President Pradip Saraogi. The tournament will be played in a round robin format, with the top four qualifying for the semi-finals and final.
Each match will be played in an innovative format of five frames comprising two frames of 15-Red Snooker, one frame of 100-up Billiards, one game of 6-Red Snooker and one doubles frame of alternate Shots, said Saraogi.
The teams are as follows:
SHOOTING STARS: Rupesh Shah (Marquee); Sunil Saraogi, Benay Agarwala, Chandan Balmiki, Neeraj Khemka, Jyotirmoy Das.
SNOOKING SHOOTERS: Siddharth Parikh (Marquee); Debashish Mukhopadhyay, Vikrant Gupta, Wangchuk Bhutia, Sushil Sarda, Neeraj Sharma.
SATRANGI SQUAD: Brijesh Damani (Marquee); Rahul Berlia, Aditya Goenka, Rohit Rajghariya, Shreevardhan Poddar, Sagar Malhotra.
PAPPU PENGUINS: Kamal Chawla (Marquee); Siddharth Casyab; Aamer Hussain, Sumit Jhunjhunwala, Nilangshu Haldar, Anil Poddar.
CITY KNIGHTS: Dhvaj Haria (Marquee); Ravi Goenka, Rajesh Tulsian, Ankit Kariwala, Terrence Mac, Abdul Miraz.
THE ROCKETS: Sundeep Gulati (Marquee); Rishabh Dugar, S.K. Sarfarazuddin, Shakil Ahmed, Akram Khan, Abhishek Kedia.
ELVY 147: Shahbaaz Khan (Marquee); Manish Jain, Suniti Damani, Dheerendra Baid, Shivam Saraf, Dhruv Agarwal.
CUE MAGICIAN: Sourav Kothari (Marquee); Kingshuk Saha, Shoaib Khan, Arafat Mondal, Gautam Khanwani, Saif Khan.
BLACK PANTHERS: Manan Chandra (Marquee); Piyush Bhagat, Arshad Zama, Ramesh Jaiswal, Rohit Malhotra, Mudit Poddar.