Rajdipkumar Gupta, Sandipkumar Gupta, and actor Suriya Sivakumar, the promoters of Chennai Singams, onboarded 16 players for the inaugural Indian Street Premier League (ISPL) season, including the popular player, Sumeet Dhekale.
The Chennai-based franchise is one of six teams participating in the street-to-stadium league’s inaugural season, which runs from March 6 to March 15, 2024, in Mumbai.
Chennai Singams squad, with a budget of INR 1 crore, bought 16 players for a collective value of INR 96.4 lakh, becoming the highest bidder team at the auction. Chennai Singams were represented by co-owner Rajdipkumar Gupta and the core crew of Rahul Pandey, Ashish Jaiswal, and Sandeep Jaiswal.
Entrepreneur Rajdip Gupta, Co-owner, Chennai Singams, said, “Our team strength is our players. We are elated to have bought some of the best players in the lot. The scouting camp that we hosted was very fruitful. Can’t wait for the Chennai Singams team to take to the field.”
Actor Suriya Sivakumar, Co-Owner, Chennai Singams, said, “Witnessing the dedication, skill and talent on display, namely Sumeet Dhekale, Ketan Mhatre, R. Thavith Kumar, Venkatachalapathi Vignesh among others, I am confident that Chennai Singams will cross a milestone in the upcoming inaugural edition of the Indian Street Premier League. Our team is marked by passion, determination, and a relentless pursuit of excellence. Experience and raw talent are hard to resist!
“Chennai Singams is more than just a team; cricket is more than just a game for us. It’s an emotion! Like all cricket lovers, I also eagerly await the game of our players in the ISPL matches. Sports and sportsmanship are a forever inspiration! Let us roar together, Chennai Singams!”
Chennai Singams, a squad built up of players from all over the nation, paid INR 19 lakh for Sumeet Dhekale, which made him one of the most expensive players, followed by Ketan Mhatre for INR 16.5 lakh, Farman Khan for INR 10.5 lakh, Dilip Binjwa for INR 9 lakh, Sanjay Kanojjiya for INR 7 lakh, Sagar Ali for INR 4.4 lakh, Harish Parmar for INR 3 lakh, Vedant Mayekar for INR 3 lakh, Pankaj Patel for INR 3 lakh, Farhat Ahmad for INR 3 lakh, and R. Thavith Kumar for INR 3 lakh and more.
At the auction, SportsMint Media had an exclusive interaction with Rajdipkumar Gupta. In the tete-a-tete, we asked Mr Gupta about the tennis ball cricketers getting humongous monetary benefits due to the inaugural season of ISPL.
“More than monetary benefits, players would be more excited about the opportunity. All these players might have never gotten a chance to appear on national TV. Players are not looking out for how much money they’ll get out of this tournament but probably they want to make sure that they get an opportunity to come on TV. Many cricketers have always played in gullies but never had an option even to come on YouTube. So definitely, them getting watched by millions over TV will be more exciting and, with the one crore pool money, certain players got INR 27 lacs, which is a big amount for the first season. Money is secondary, but this platform is very critical and most of the people are excited because of the platform.”