Nine teams -- each endorsed by a Tollywood celebrity -- are set to battle it out in the inaugural edition of Darts Premier League (DPL) -- a franchise-based competition scheduled to be held in Kolkata from June 5.
Nine marquee players which include the likes of Aneeta Mehta, Arnab Raha, Jolly Chanda, Vinamra Garg will feature in this tournament which boasts of a prize money of 10 lakhs with winners pocketing Rs.6 lakh. Each of the nine franchises will have one marquee player.
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Veteran actress Rituparna Sengupta will be the brand ambassador for Shining Stars, while Tanushree Chakraborty, of "Buno Haansh" fame has been roped in for Aauris strikers.
The other teams in the tourney are Apollo Arrows (Ananya Chatterjee), Tungsten Creed (Arunima Ghosh), Sharp Shooters (Gargee Roychowdhury), Warriors (Ushasie Chakraborty), Eklavya (Rachel White), Arrow Heads (Sampurna Lahiri) and Magma Yoddha (Sohini Sarkar).
Every team will comprise eight players, five men and three women. "It is compulsory to have 3 women player in every team" said Dilip Singh Mehta, vice chairman of West Bengal Darts Association.
An auction will be held on Thursday from where the different franchises will have to pick their players. There will be 72 players divided into three categories.
Chairman of DPL Prasanta Saha said: "In every match at least two women players have to play."
Saha, also secretary general of All India Darts Association, is hopeful about the growth of the game in the country.
"Simplicity and 'no age bar' will lead to the growth of the darts in India," said Saha.
