MUMBAI: Zee Sports will telecast live and exclusive, the Indian Oil Asian Badminton Championship to be played in Hyderabad from 6 - 11 September.

Zee Sports will telecast the quarterfinals, semi finals and finals of the championship. With an objective of sports entertainment and to make the telecast entertaining, Zee Sports have signed former All England Badminton Champion Prakash Padukone and ace commentator Charu Sharma to present live commentary, expert opinion and pre and post analysis of the matches.
 
 

The six-day, four-star tournament of men's & ladies singles and doubles and the mixed event carries a total prize money of Rs 6 million. Indian Oil is the main sponsor of the event, with logistic major DHL being the associate sponsor, states an official release.

Zee Sports COO Gary Lovejoy said, "We are delighted to welcome Prakash Padukone and Charu Sharma to the Zee Sports expert panel for the 'Indian Oil Asian Badminton Championship'. Prakash brings with him years of experience of playing world class badminton and Sharma will present the analysis in a manner which can be understood by the viewers".
 
 

The channel will be telecast the final matches from 3 pm to 6:30 pm on 10 September and 3 pm to 7 pm on 11 September.

A total of 18 countries had confirmed their participation for the tournament including players from Malaysia, Indonesia, Korea, Japan, China and India. Some of the prominent players participating in the tournament are former All England champion Hashim Muhd Roslin of Malaysia; two times Asian Champion Sony Dwi Kuncora of Indonesia, Thailand's No 1 and 2004 Athens Olympics semifinalist Boonsak Ponsana, Lee Hyin II of Korea and Ng Wei of Hong Kong. The Indian challenge is being served by former national champion Chetan Anand, promising youngster Abhinn Shyam Gupta and P. Gupta. The women challenge will be led by world number 30 Aparna Popat, Shruti Kurien and Sania Nehwal, the release adds.