Kathmandu, Sept. 30: The Everest Women’s Volleyball League (EWVL), the first franchise volleyball league of women, is kicking off on September 30, Monday, at the Covered Hall in Dasharath Stadium. 

The League is being participated by six teams – Madhes United, Chitwan Shakti, Kathmandu Spikers, Lalitpur Queens, Gandaki Thunders and Karnali Yashvis. The teams are filled with national as well as international players.

The EWVL will be played across five days. With three matches a day, the League played in a single round-robin format will conclude with the final on October 5. The top two teams on the points table after playing one match against each other will qualify for the final.

Kathmandu, which is coached by national volleyball coach Jagdish Prasad Bhatta, is opening the League by facing Lalitpur at 3:45 pm. It will be followed by Madhes vs Karnali (5:45 pm) and Chitwan vs Gandaki (7:45 pm).

Thus, each team has a match every day. Similarly, all the teams are balanced and updated with foreign players and they all have expressed the desire to lift the trophy. Each team is allowed to play three foreign players. 

The coaches and marquee players of participating teams stated that they were eying the Cup while talking to the journalists at a pre-League conference at the Covered Hall on Sunday.

“All teams have good players and coaches. They all have foreign players as well. I wish luck to all the teams, but the League is ours,” said Bhatta.

Kathmandu’s marquee player is Usha Bhandari and they have procured three foreign players from Turkey and Bulgaria. 

Meanwhile, other teams are also equally formidable. 

Chitwan has two Indian nationals – S. Soorya and KP Anushree – and an outside hitter from Azerbaijan; the team has Nepal’s captain Aruna Shahi as the marquee player. Arjun Ghimire is the coach of Chitwan.

With the tall Saraswati Chaudhary as the marquee player, Gandaki is being coached by Rupesh Kumar Bista. India’s Shilpa RS and the Russian duo – Alisa Trubyuk and Ekaterina Zvyagintsewa – are Gandaki’s foreign players.

Similarly, Karnali has a diligent coach, Kumar Rai, backing the team with Sumitra Regmi as the marquee player. Karnali has added three foreign players from the USA, Greece and Turkey.

Libero Salina Shrestha is leading Lalitpur’s team, which is being coached by Utshav Khadka. Along with domestic players like Poonam Chand and Kamana Bista, Lalitpur will be showing their capabilities against Kathmandu in the League opener.

Nevertheless, with Niruta Thagunna as the marquee player, Madhes has got players from Tunisia, India and Kazakhstan. Bharat Yadav is coaching Madhes, and the team also shared the dream of winning the EWVL in the first edition.