The first leg of the six-team tournament, which the organisers hope will bring about a revolution and take the sport to greater heights in the country, will kick off at the Sree Kanteerava stadium here on May 29.
“Volleyball is yet to taste the growth and success that cricket has,” said K Murugan, secretary general of the Volleyball Federation of India, at a press conference.
“After a lot of planning, we’ve devised the IVL, which we hope will come as a breath of fresh air. This is just the start and I am confident the IVL will continue to grow.”
The first leg will conclude in Bangalore on June 2 before moving to Chennai (June 4-8) and Yanam (June 12-16), and signing off in Hyderabad (June 20-24). The six teams in the fray are Karnataka Bulls, Chennai Spikers, Hyderabad Chargers, Kerala Killers, Yanam Tigers and Maratha Warriors.
“We are hoping to sign in a broadcaster for live coverage. Doordarshan has demanded Rs 1.5 lakh only for the Bangalore leg, with different rates for the other legs. We are in talks with TEN Sports too. A decision will be made by Wednesday evening,” said Murugan.
The total budget for the tournament is Rs 1.5 crore, with prize money alone totalling Rs 22.5 lakh. Each leg will have five individual awards, with all participants earning appearance money as well.
A three-man selection panel comprising A Ramana Rao, G E Sridharan and Shyam Sundar Rao, all former internationals, handpicked and allocated players from a national pool to the six teams.
The teams:
Karnataka Bulls: Suresh Godara, J Thennarasan, N Shelton Moses, N Jagadeesh, A Vikram, TD Ravikumar, Imtiyaz Ahmed, M Vinod, Anup D’Costa, Sanjay Kumar, Dharshan, Dilip Khoiwal. Coach: Om Prakash. Asst coach: TC Jothish. Manager: Basavaraj CH.
Chennai Spikers: KJ Kapil Dev, R Kamaraj, Navjit Singh, VK Ansar, Rohit P, Karthikeyan, Prabhakaran, KG Ragesh, Mandeep Singh, P Sivabalan, S Kanakaraj, J Nadarajan. Coach: A Venkatesan. Asst coach: P Sundaram. Manager: Jayakumar.
Hyderabad Chargers: M Ukkrapandian, Kasi Viswanadha Raju, Sube Singh, Deepesh K Sinha, Narendra Kumar, Lalit Kumar, S Karthik, Gurinder Singh, VR Sanoj, Vinod Negi, Lanmeet Katariya, T Naresh. Coach: MH Kumara. Asst coach: Koteswara Rao. Manager: Murali Mohan.
Kerala Killers: Jayalal, Manu V, GR Vaishnav, G Vinayender, Jinson Varghese, Naveen Raja Jacob, Vivek Singh, Ravinder Reddy, KP Shaheem, Sudarshan BH Varma, Kiran Philip, Shamji K Thomas. Coach: KA Nazer. Trainer: Abhijit Bhatacharjee. Manager: KR Vijay Anand.
Yanam Tigers: M Thulasi Reddy, Ranjit Singh, Y Subba Rao, D Soundar, R Sathish Kumar, V John Christopher, M Ch R Krishnam Raju, PS Sreekanth, Tom Joseph, P Kalaivanan, Rabindra Murdi, Ashok SS. Coach: Muthukesavalu. Asst coach: S Mohd Jinha. Manager: Subbanna.
Maratha Warriors: Balwinder Singh, Anil Kumar Edelli, G Pradeep, T Azeez, Bhaskar P Buchade, Gurchand Singh, Jitender Kumar, Omvir Mann, D Selva Prabhu, R Rajkumar, Surender Kumar, Amay D Kulkarni. Coach: DR Jadhav. Asst coach: Ajit Patil.
IVL factfile
* Total budget: Rs 1.5 crore
* Prize money: 22.5 lakhs
* Schedule: First leg: Bangalore (May 29-June 2)
* Second leg: Chennai (Jun 4-8).
* Third leg: Yanam (Jun 12-16).
* Fourth leg: Hyderabad (June 20-24).
