The arrow in full flight: How the APL aims to change Indian archery

Moment to savour: Mighty Marathas won the Archery Premier League season 2 by beating Kakatiya Knights in the final.  | Photo Credit: SIDDHANT THAKUR

The Indian Premier League discovered a kind of alchemy. Take a sport, add franchises, flush it with investment, and watch it change. Profit appears where none existed before. Talent mushrooms from places few scouts, if any, had thought to look. An audience arrives in droves.

When it turned profitable, the franchise route stopped looking like an experiment and started looking like common sense. Other sports have since signed up to become laboratories, hoping the formula works for them too. It might not just be beneficial. It might be imperative.

“Only India can do an archery league. No one is crazy or brave enough to put in so much effort and have a positive outcome,” World Archery executive director Juan Carlos Holgado told Sportstar on the sidelines of the Archery Premier League’s second edition.

Franchise leagues sell a sport as much as they make it pay, and few less-mainstream sports have gambled as boldly as archery. Announced more than a year ago, the APL broke with the traditional international discipline format, fused both branches and put Indian and foreign archers on the same team. It shaved five seconds off the shot clock, giving archers just 15 seconds to nail the perfect shot.

“Season one, day one was chaos for all the teams. We didn’t know how to figure it all out. After a couple of days, strategies fell into place, and the fun began,” Dhiraj Bommadevara said.

Dhiraj rallied his side, Mighty Marathas, to the championship in Hyderabad. The outfit played three matches (Eliminator, Qualifier and Final) on the final day, recovering from a narrow defeat to Kakatiya Knights with a win over the same opponent in the title clash. Dhiraj sealed it with an arrow into the inner X-ring.

Dhiraj Bommadevara rallied his side, Mighty Marathas, to the championship. | Photo Credit: SIDDHANT THAKUR

Archers had delivered the biggest share of India’s medal haul at the 2026 Asian Games, and interest in APL season 2 was high.

At People’s Plaza in the City of Pearls, the faces on the hoardings told the story. Kumkum Mohod and Chikitha Taniparthi, both double gold medallists at the Asiad, stood out, ahead of seasoned archers including Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Abhishek Verma and reigning Olympic recurve champion Casey Kaufhold.

Beyond the competition lies a larger goal: the Olympics. In Sportstar’s many conversations with Anil Kamineni, the APL director who conceived the league and convinced World Archery to back his vision, he made it clear that the league could ultimately benefit Indian archers on the grandest stage.

“I have played in the World Cup and other events. But to be playing alongside international archers is really good. In the first season of APL, I got to learn so much from the foreign archers. I got inspired by their discipline and dedication. And the 15-second shot clock also makes things interesting,” 17-year-old Kumkum tells Sportstar. She carried those lessons into a year in which she won three Asiad medals, while showing the world that the South Koreans can be beaten at a sport they seemed to own.

In public hoardings advertising the tournament, Kumkum Mohod and Chikitha Taniparthi, both double gold medallists at the Asiad, stood out, ahead of seasoned archers including Jyothi Surekha Vennam, Abhishek Verma and reigning Olympic recurve champion Casey Kaufhold. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

In Hyderabad, the competition burned as fiercely as ever. Between shots, however, teams cheered each other from the sidelines, with proper cheers, slogan chanting, and copious whistling.

Ojas Pravin Deotale was among the loudest, even passing on some of his dance moves, including the naagin dance, to Turkey’s former Olympic champion Mete Gazoz. The quieter Jyothi and Chikitha joined in too, if without the flamboyance of Ojas, Dhiraj or Ganesh Mani Ratnam Thirumuru.

The bonds between Indian and foreign archers are real. The APL may not have created them, but many credit it with deepening them. It has also infused a largely individual discipline with elements of team sport. Personal scores matter little if the team does not win.

Anil Kamineni (L), whose brainchild the Archery Premier League is, ultimately wants the tournament to help generate more world-class archers who can medal for India at the biggest stages of the sport. | Photo Credit: SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

For the newcomers, the lessons came fast. In 10 days of action, teenagers Yuktha Sri Kondapavuluri, 17, and Gatha Anandrao Khadake, 16, earned their place with impressive performances under pressure against world-class opponents. Asian Games bronze medallist Neeraj Chauhan also delighted spectators with his penchant for the X-ring.

It is a long way from where the sport began. Once, archery belonged to the epics. Its heroes were divine and noble, and its greatest moments were sung rather than seen. Today, under the APL’s spotlight, its heroes dance on the sidelines, laugh with rivals from other countries and wait their turn at the line.