Chennai Superstarz

Not to be confused with Chennai Superstars, a cricket team that participated in the Indian Cricket League.

Chennai Superstarz

Sport	Badminton
Founded	2015 (2015) as Chennai Smashers
First season	2016
League	Premier Badminton League
Based in	Chennai, India
Home ground	Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium
Colors	Yellow
Owner	R. Sivakumar [1] [2]
CEO	Aditya Meesala [2]
Head coach	Aravindan Samiappan [3]
Captain	Tommy Sugiarto
PBL wins	1 (2017)

Chennai Superstarz (formerly known as Chennai Smashers) is a franchise badminton team based in Chennai that plays in the Premier Badminton League (PBL). The team has won the PBL title once, has been in the semi-finals of the league twice in their five appearances. They won the 2017 season beating Mumbai Rockets 3–2. The franchise was renamed from Chennai Smashers to Chennai Superstarz in 2020.

History

The team's first season in the PBL was in 2016. ^{[4] [5]} Vijay Prabhakaran initially owned the franchise from 2016 to 2019. ^{[6] [7]} In December 2019, Sivakumar who owns a regional badminton league named Tamil Nadu Badminton Super League acquired the franchise to become its new owner. ^[2] The franchise also changed its name into Chennai Superstarz for the 2020 season. ^[8]

Rio Olympics silver medallist P. V. Sindhu was part of the team for the first three seasons. ^{[6] [9]} They won their first and only PBL title in 2017. With P. V. Sindhu in their roster, they defeated Mumbai Rockets 3–2 in the final at New Delhi. ^[10] During the third and fourth seasons, the team finished sixth. They failed to get past Northeastern Warriors in the semi-finals (-1)–3. The team is currently coached by Aravindan Samiappan.

Home venue

From 2017, the Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor stadium serves as the home for the team. ^[11] The stadium located in Chennai, has a seating capacity of 5,000. ^[12] In 2016, there was no home venue for the team due to unavailability of Jawaharlal Nehru Indoor stadium in Chennai and Coimbatore. ^[6]

Current squad

	Player [13] [8]	Category	Salary [14]	Notes
Coach	Aravindan Samiappan [2] [3]
Domestic	Satwiksairaj Rankireddy	Men's/Mixed Doubles	₹62 lakh (US$73,000)
	B. Sumeeth Reddy		₹11 lakh (US$13,000)	Retained player
	Dhruv Kapila
	Sanjana Santosh	Women's/Mixed Doubles	₹2 lakh (US$2,400)
	Gayatri Gopichand	Women's Singles	₹2 lakh (US$2,400)
	Lakshya Sen	Men's Singles	₹36 lakh (US$43,000)
	Sathish Karunakaran		₹1 lakh (US$1,200)
	Sankar Subramanian		₹1 lakh (US$1,200)
Overseas	Tommy Sugiarto		₹41 lakh (US$48,000)	Captain
	Kirsty Gilmour	Women's Singles	₹10 lakh (US$12,000)
	Jessica Pugh	Women's/Mixed Doubles	₹13 lakh (US$15,000)	Transferred from Mumbai [15]

Seasons

Result summary

S	Year	Total	RMW	TMW	TML	Pts.	Win %	League standing	Final standing
1	2016	25	10	4	1	17	56%	3rd out of 6	Semi-finalist
2	2017	25	8	5	0	18	52%	1st out of 6	Champions
3	2017–18	25	8	3	2	12	44%	6th out of 8	6th Place
4	2018–19	30	12	3	3	15	50%	6th out of 9	6th Place
5	2020	30	10	6	0	22	53%	3rd out of 7	Semi-finalist
	Total	135	48	21	6	—	51%

Last updated: 7 February 2020; Source: Official PBL website

Season 3

Results Date Venue Team 1 Result Team 2 Report 2 Jan Mumbai Mumbai Rockets 3-4 Chennai Smashers [16] 4 Jan Lucknow Chennai Smashers 4-3 Delhi Acers [17] 10 Jan Hyderabad Chennai Smashers 4-3 Hyderabad Hunters [18] [19] 11 Jan Hyderabad Awadhe Warriors 4-1 Chennai Smashers [20] [21] 13 Jan Bengaluru Chennai Smashers 4-1 Bengaluru Topguns [22] 14 Jan (SF) Bengaluru Delhi Acers 4-3 Chennai Smashers [23]

Points table Each tie (MP) will have five matches each. Regular Match Win (RMW) = 1 point, Trump Match Win (TMW) = 2 points, Trump Match Lost (TML) = -1 point. Pos. Teams MP RMW TMW TML Pts. Qualification 1 Delhi Acers 25 10 5 0 20 Qualified for Semi-finals 2 Awadhe Warriors 25 10 4 1 17 3 Chennai Smashers 25 10 4 1 17 4 Mumbai Rockets 25 9 3 2 13 5 Hyderabad Hunters 25 7 3 2 11 6 Bengaluru Topguns 25 9 2 3 10

Player statistics

Player	Category	P	W	Sets Won	Sets Lost	Win %	MVP
Brice Leverdez	Men's Singles	4	1	2	6	25	0
Sony Dwi Kuncoro		3	1	3	5	33.3	0
Simon Santoso		3	2	4	4	50	0
P. V. Sindhu	Women's Singles	5	5	9	3	100	2
Krishna Priya		0	0	0	0	0	0
Pranaav Chopra	Men's/Mixed Doubles	5	1	4	8	20	0
Chris Adcock		9	5	11	10	56	2
Toby Ng		1	0	0	2	0	0
Sikki Reddy	Women's/Mixed Doubles	0	0	0	0	0	0
Pia Zebadiah		5	4	8	4	80	0
Total Matches Played: 5				NA		80	4

Season 4

Results Date Venue Team 1 Result Team 2 25 Dec Hyderabad Hyderabad Hunters 5 – 0 Chennai Smashers 30 Dec Pune Ahmedabad Smash Masters (-1) – 6 Chennai Smashers 3 Jan Ahmedabad Pune 7 Aces 3 – 4 Chennai Smashers 7 Jan Bengaluru Awadhe Warriors 4 – 3 Chennai Smashers 10 Jan Bengaluru Bengaluru Raptors 3 – 2 Chennai Smashers

Points table Each tie (MP) will have five matches each. Regular Match Win (RMW) = 1 point, Trump Match Win (TMW) = 2 points, Trump Match Lost (TML) = -1 point. Team MP RMW RML TMW TML Pts. Awadhe Warriors 30 13 11 6 0 25 Hyderabad Hunters 30 15 9 5 1 24 Bengaluru Raptors 30 12 12 5 1 21 Mumbai Rockets 30 13 11 4 2 19 Pune 7 Aces 30 8 16 5 1 17 Chennai Smashers 30 12 12 3 3 15 Ahmedabad Smash Masters 30 7 17 4 2 13 North Eastern Warriors 30 11 13 2 4 11 Delhi Dashers 30 9 15 1 5 6

Season 5

Points table Rank Team MP RMW RML TMW TML Pts. 1 Northeastern Warriors 30 13 11 5 1 22 2 Bengaluru Raptors (C) 30 13 11 5 1 22 3 Chennai Superstarz 30 10 14 6 0 22 4 Pune 7 Aces 30 14 10 4 2 20 5 Awadhe Warriors 30 11 13 3 3 14 6 Hyderabad Hunters 30 11 13 2 4 11 7 Mumbai Rockets 30 4 20 4 2 10   Qualified for knockouts Five matches (MP) constitute one tie Each team will play six ties 1 point for each Regular Match Won (RMW) 0 points for Regular Matches Lost (RML) 2 points for each Trump Match Won (TMW) -1 point for each Trump Match Lost (TML) [24] Source: Official PBL website

Results Date Venue Home Results Away 20 January Chennai Chennai Superstarz 5–2 Hyderabad Hunters 22 January Chennai Superstarz 4–3 Mumbai Rockets 24 January Chennai Superstarz 4–3 Bengaluru Raptors 30 January Hyderabad Pune 7 Aces 5–2 Chennai Superstarz 1 February Awadhe Warriors 3–4 Chennai Superstarz 4 February Northeastern Warriors 4–3 Chennai Superstarz Semifinal Date Venue Home Results Away 7 February Hyderabad Chennai Superstarz (-1) – 3 Northeastern Warriors

Player statistics

Player	Category	P	W	Sets Won	Sets Lost	Win %	MVP
Lakshya Sen	Men's Singles	5	4	9	3	80%	1
K. Sathish Kumar		2	0	0	4	0%	0
Sankar Muthusamy		1	0	0	2	0%	0
Tommy Sugiarto		4	4	8	2	100%	2
Gayatri Gopichand	Women's Singles	4	0	2	8	0%	0
Kirsty Gilmour		2	2	4	0	100%	0
Satwiksairaj Rankireddy	Men's/Mixed Doubles	7	4	9	10	57%	1
B. Sumeeth Reddy		4	2	4	5	50%	1
Dhruv Kapila		7	3	7	9	43%	1
Sanjana Santosh	Women's/Mixed Doubles	1	0	0	2	0%	0
Jessica Pugh		5	3	6	6	60%	1
Total Matches Played: 30				NA

Last updated: 5 February 2020; Source: Official PBL website

Chennai Superstarz finished third in the league stage with 22 points qualifying for the semifinals. They won all of their trump matches becoming the only team in the season to do so. They lost to Northeastern Warriors in the semifinal. This was their second PBL semifinal loss in five appearances.

Former squads

Year (S)	2018-19 [25] (4)	2017-18 (3)	2017 (2)	2016 [6] (1)
Domestic	Vijaydeep Singh
	Sumeeth Reddy	P. V. Sindhu	P. V. Sindhu	P. V. Sindhu
	Rutaparna Panda	Aditya Joshi	Arundhati Pantawane	Krishna Priya
	Saili Rane	B. Sumeeth Reddy	Parupalli Kashyap	Pranaav Chopra
	Saili Rane	Daniel Farid	Ramya Tulasi	Sikki Reddy
	Parupalli Kashyap	Vrushali Gummadi	B. Sumeeth Reddy
Overseas	Chris Adcock	Chris Adcock	Chris Adcock	Chris Adcock
	Gabby Adcock	Brice Leverdez	Tommy Sugiarto	Brice Leverdez
	Or Chin Chung	Gabby Adcock	Gabby Adcock	Sony Dwi Kuncoro
	Rajiv Ouseph	Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk	Tanongsak Saensomboonsuk	Simon Santoso
	Sung Ji-hyun	Lee Yang	Mads Pieler Kolding	Toby Ng
	Chong Wei Feng			Pia Zebadiah

• Team captains listed in bold.

References

1. Behind The Scenes: Short Interview with owners Aditya Meesala and R.Sivakumar , retrieved 23 January 2020
2. Keerthivasan, K. (27 November 2019). "Premier Badminton League | It will now be Chennai Superstarz". The Hindu. ISSN   0971-751X . Retrieved 25 January 2020.
3. Superstarz Diaries: Episode 1: The day after the win against Hyderabad Hunters , retrieved 23 January 2020
4. "Badminton Association of India announces the 2nd Edition of the Indian Badminton League". sportskeeda.com. Retrieved 29 October 2015.
5. "After two year gap, Indian Badminton League will return in 2016". firstpost.com. Retrieved 30 October 2015.
6. "Smashers latch on to CSK identity". The Hindu. 25 December 2015.
7. "Actor Vijayakanth's son Vijay acquires new team in Indian Cue Masters League". United News of India. 26 July 2017.
8. Sportstar, Team. "PBL Auction- As it happened: PV Sindhu, Tai Tzu fetch big bucks, Chennai, Pune build strong teams". Sportstar. Retrieved 10 January 2020.
9. "PBL 2017: PV Sindhu Beats Saina Nehwal To Guide Chennai Smashers to Final". News18. 13 January 2017. Retrieved 8 May 2020.
10. Das, Deepika (15 January 2017). "PBL: Smashers zoom past Rockets in final". The Asian Age. Retrieved 8 May 2020.
11. "Fixtures". Premier Badminton League. Retrieved 8 May 2020.
12. "Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Chennai". SDAT, Government of Tamil Nadu. Archived from the original on 18 March 2014. Retrieved 4 July 2015.
13. "Team Overview". Premier Badminton League. Retrieved 21 January 2020.
14. Sportstar, Team. "PBL 5 Auction: Full team list, released and sold players". Sportstar. Retrieved 25 January 2020.
15. India, P. B. L. (20 January 2020). "Done deal!". @PBLIndiaLive. Retrieved 25 January 2020.
16. "Premier Badminton League: PV Sindhu's Chennai Smashers Edge Past Mumbai Rockets". NDTVSports.com. Archived from the original on 4 January 2016. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
17. "Premier Badminton League 2016". www.pbl-india.com. Archived from the original on 6 January 2016. Retrieved 5 January 2016.
18. "Smashers score over Hunters". The Hindu. 10 January 2016. ISSN   0971-751X . Retrieved 10 January 2016.^{[ permanent dead link ]}
19. "Premier Badminton League 2016, The Highest Prize Money Tournament in World". pbl-india.com. Archived from the original on 13 January 2016. Retrieved 14 January 2016.
20. "Awadhe Warriors beat Chennai Smashers 4-1, enter Premier Badminton League semis". IBNLive. Retrieved 11 January 2016.
21. "Premier Badminton League 2016, The Highest Prize Money Tournament in World". pbl-india.com. Archived from the original on 13 January 2016. Retrieved 14 January 2016.
22. "Premier Badminton League 2016, The Highest Prize Money Tournament in World". pbl-india.com. Archived from the original on 14 January 2016. Retrieved 14 January 2016.
23. "Premier Badminton League 2016, The Highest Prize Money Tournament in World". pbl-india.com. Archived from the original on 14 January 2016. Retrieved 15 January 2016.
24. "Rules and Regulations". PBL. Retrieved 23 December 2018.
25. "Team Squad". Premier Badminton League. Retrieved 10 January 2020.

External links

• Chennai Superstarz on Twitter