Volleyball (BlackBerry)

The phones will become once-expensive bricks as data, phone calls, texting, even 911 calls will no longer function from the device.

The delay between the announcement and the service shutdown was “an expression of thanks” to their customers, the company said.

The BlackBerry ushered in a new reliance on mobile phones in the early 2000s. It provided access to the internet with a keyboard that could fire off texts and emails in seconds. It soon developed a nickname of “Crackberry” due to its addicting nature.India gears up to embark on a special journey as numerous talented players are all set to showcase their talent in the first season of the RuPay Prime Volleyball League at the Gachibowli Indoor Stadium in Hyderabad. The competition will be held in a robust bio-bubble where all the safety measures for Covid-19 has been put in place. The RuPay Prime Volleyball League will feature a total of 24 matches.Seven franchises namely Calicut Heroes, Kochi Blue Spikers, Ahmedabad Defenders, Hyderabad Black Hawks, Chennai Blitz, Bengaluru Torpedoes and Kolkata Thunderbolts will all battle it out for the trophy from 5 February 2022 to 27 February 2022. The tournament will consist of 24 matches with Hyderabad Black Hawks taking on the Kochi Blue Spikers in the opening match. All the teams will play each of the other teams once before the top four teams qualify for the Semi-Finals. The knockouts will be played on 24 February, 2022 and 25 February, 2022.

The Ahmedabad Defenders

The Ahmedabad Defenders will receive the services of an excellent Setter in Muthusamy and he will be backed by Middle Blocker Manoj LM. American Ryan Meehan (Blocker) and Rodrigo Villalboa from Argentina (Attacker). The rest of the squad includes Hardeep Singh, Shon T John, S Santhosh, Prabakaran P, Saju Prakash Meyal, Prasanna Raja AA, Chaudhari Harsh and Angamuthu.

The Bengaluru Torpedoes

The Bengaluru Torpedoes meanwhile will witness the experienced Ranjit Singh (Captain & Setter) and Pankaj Sharma (Attacker) taking the field for the team and they will receive thorough support from American players – Noah Taitano (Universal) and Kyle Friend (Attacker). The rest of the make-up of the team includes Rohith P, Varun GS, B Midhun Kumar, Sarang Santhilal, Lavmeet Katariya, Srajan U Shetty, Ranjit Singh, Vinayak Rokhade and Ganesha K.

The Hyderabad Black Hawks

The Hyderabad Black Hawks will see experienced attacker Amit Gulia take the center stage for the franchise and he will be supported by Setters Hariharan V and Vipul Kumar. The Hyderabad team has also been bolstered by International personnel in Luis Antonio Arias Guzman from Venezuela (Universal) and Henry Bell from Cuba (Attacker). The rest of the squad includes Rohit Kumar, George Antony, Anand K, Sudheer Shetty, John Joseph EJ, Jishnu PV, Praful S and SV Guru Prasanth.

The Calicut Heroes

The star duo of Jerome Vinith (Universal) and Ajithlal C (Attacker) will lead the charge for the Calicut Heroes and have tremendous backing from International players from the USA in Olympic gold medallist, David Lee (Blocker) & Aaron Koubi (Attacker). The rest of the squad includes Abil Krishnan MP, Vshal Krishna PS, Vignesh Raj D, R Ramanathan, Arjun Nath LS, Mujeeb MC, Jithin N, Lal Sujan MV, Arun Zacharias Siby and Ansab O.

The Chennai Blitz
The Chennai Blitz will receive the services of experienced players – Ukkrapandian Mohan (Captain & Setter), Akhin GS (Middle Blocker) and Naveen Raja Jacob (Attacker). They have also bolstered their side with International players in Fernando David Gonzalez Rodriguez from Venezuela (Attacker) and Bruno Da Silva from the USA (Attacker). The rest of the squad includes Amit, Azmath Ulla, Kanagaraj, GR Vaishnav, Abhilash Chaudhary, Mohit Bheem Sehrawat, Pinamma Prashant, Amitsinh Kaptansinh Tanvar and Jobin Varghese.

The Kochi Blue Spikers

The Captain in the Indian national team’s last tournament, Karthik Madhu (Middle Blocker) will lead the charge for Kochi Blue Spikers. He will be supported by the experienced Middle Blocker Deepesh Kumar Sinha. They have also bolstered their side with International players – Colton Cowell (Attacker) and Cody Caldwell (Attacker) from USA. The rest of the squad includes Raison Benet Rebello, Sethu TR, Erin Varghese, Darshan S Gowda, C Venu, Abhinav BS, Dushyanth GN, Prashant Kumar Saroha, Asham A and Abdul Raheem.

The Kolkata Thunderbolts

The Kolkata Thunderbolts will receive the services of experienced players – Ashwal Rai (Captain & Middle Blocker) and Vinit Kumar (Universal) who will have tremendous backing from international players in Matthew August (Blocker) and Ian Satterfield (Universal) from the USA. The rest of the squad includes Anu James, Tharun Gowda K, Mohamed Riyazudeen, Rahul K, Hari Prasad BS, Muhammed Shafeeq, Aravindhan S and Janshad U.

Speaking before the start of the volleyball fever in India, Tuhin Mishra, Co-Founder and MD, Baseline Ventures, said, “We are moments away from a massive occasion not just in Indian volleyball, but in Indian sport overall. We have waited for a long time to provide a platform to numerous talented volleyball players wherein they can showcase their talent and therefore we are eager to get the tournament started. We are looking forward to a cracker of a tournament and we hope that all players play at their absolute best during the course of the tournament. I would like to wish all the franchises the best of luck for the competition.”

So, sit back on your couch and tune into the RuPay Prime Volleyball League powered by A23, LIVE and Exclusive on SONY TEN 1, SONY TEN 2 (Malayalam), SONY TEN 3 (Hindi) and SONY TEN 4 (Tamil and Telugu) February 5, 2022, onwards.

RuPay Prime Volleyball League: 13 sponsors in Season 1

The RuPay Prime Volleyball League is exclusively marketed by Baseline Ventures, the leading sports marketing firm in the nation. RuPay, the first-of-its-kind Global Card payment network from India, has come on board as the Title Sponsor of the RuPay Prime Volleyball. League and Fantasy games leaders A23 have signed on as “Powered By” Sponsors in a multi-year deal. Byju’s, Cred, Dafa News, EatFit, Amul Kool and Nippon Paint have come on board as Associate Sponsors and Cosco & Apollo Hospitals have associated with the RuPay Prime Volleyball League as the Official Partners. ShareChat and Moj are the Official Content Partners of the RuPay Prime Volleyball League.

The article has been produced on behalf of RuPay Prime Volleyball League by the Times Internet’s Spotlight team.