THE inaugural edition of the Handball Pro League (HPL) will be held at Indoor Hall of Divisional Sports Complex, Mankapur from February 10-15. Five men’s and an equal number of women’s teams will vie for top honours in the six-day event. League Ambassador Esha Deol, an actor, fitness icon and a former handball player, is co-owner of Mumbai teams.

 

“Five men’s teams — Bhilai Battalion, Hyderabad Hawks, Mumbai Mavericks, Wardha Warriors and Nagpur Orange Ninjas, and women’s teams — Ahmedabad Angels, Chandrapur Cheetahs, Lucknow Lionesses, Mumbai Marvels and Nagpur Nectars will be competing in the inaugural edition. “Esha Deol is co-owner of both the Mumbai teams (with Vijay Vaidya in men and Nagpur’s J Dawda in women’s teams). Nagpur men’s team is co-owned by Anuj Gupta, Harsh Bhuva, Rakesh Bhalotiya, Dinesh Malu and Ashwin Patel while Ajit Bakery owns Nagpur women’s team,” informed Rajesh Naidu, MD, HPL during a press conference on Wednesday. HPL conduced its auction for players on January 4 and also released list of player — 14 selected and seven on stand-bys for each team. A franchisee can recruit maximum two foreign nationals in its team while one player from Vidarbha and at least two from junior category must be included in the team. The league also designated a mentor for each team.

 

“Wardha’s ID Sharma, Rajkumar Naidu, Atmaram Pande, Milind Makde (all Nagpur) and M Venugoal from Bengaluru will be mentor for men’s teams. Inderjeet Singh Randhawa, Kapil Thipte, Bhushan Ingle, Loveleen Randhawa, Sunil Bhotmange, Murali Nambiar, Poonam Kadav and Priti Rajurkar are either coach or manager of teams,” Naidu added. Roopkumar Naidu, CEO, HPL and former regional Director, SAI said that cash awards worth lakhs are in the offing. “Both men’s and women’s winners will get Rs 10 lakh each while the runners-up take home Rs 5 lakh each. The team finishing third will get Rs 3 lakh each.

 

There will be prizes for player of the match and tournament,” said Naidu adding, “Our thrust is on quality and we want to host a technically perfect tournament.” Among the patrons, Dr Babanrao Taywade said that he hopes the world gets new talent from Nagpur which once was a “mine of handball players”. Two men’s and an equal number of women’s matches will be played daily and will be beamed live on DD Sports channel along with other local channels.