With Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) being one of the most enthusiastic and nail-biting tournaments, the league is all set with the seventh season to give their audience the time of their lifetime. The seventh season of the PKL will kick off from 20th July with 12 amazingly talented teams all set to battle against each other for the glorious crown.
This article will provide you with better insights about the inner workings of the PKL auction.
To ace this game, the team with a perfect blend of raiders, defenders and all-rounders is a must. Each franchise can buy 18 to 25 players in the auction with 18 being the minimum, comprising of raider, defenders and all-rounders in the proportion they want. The total of 442 player pool from 14 countries was up for grab this year for a three-month long season.
Elite retained players:
The PKL is all set to come back with yet another enthralling season with the proclamation of the “Elite Player Retentions”. As teams begin drafting their squads for the seventh season, a total of 29 players were retained in the Elite Retained Players category. The elite retained players will continue their alliance with their respective franchises for the upcoming season.
The number of players that comprise the “Elite Retained Players” category has increased from 4 to 6 this year. The franchises can now perpetuate maximum of 6 elite players from A, B and C category respectively and only 2 players from category A and B. The player retention policy of PKL will enable teams to maintain squad continuity and stability by keeping a majority of their existing squad.
Pawan Kumar Sehrawat, Pradeep Narwal, Ajay Thakur and Fazel Atrachalli are the top names to be retained by Bengaluru Bulls, Patna Pirates, Tamil Thalaivas and U Mumba respectively.
Amusingly, the four Indians who were bought in crores during the previous season’s auctions- Monu Goyat, Rahul Chaudhari, Nitin Tomar and Rishank Devadiga were released by their respective squads for auction. The non-retained players have gone under the hammer of the auction held on 8th and 9th of April 2019.
In addition to “Elite Retained Players”, the PKL has also introduced “Retained Young Players”, a new category under which franchises can retain players picked under the “New Young Players” category, once those new young players have completed two seasons with PKL. It is essential for each team to have a maximum of 4 and a minimum of 2 foreign players in their respective squads.
Starting from Scratch
U Mumba, Pink Panthers and UP Yoddha were the ones who had hit the reset button last season by not retaining a single player. This year, Puneri Paltan is the only team to release their entire roster. This decision of Pune will perhaps put a little more pressure on them in comparison to other teams as they need to spend a little more and will have to work towards building a squad with high team spirit from scratch.
After having missed out on the playoffs in the sixth season of PKL, the management of Puneri Paltan decided that the team needed a new coach who could provide the squad with proper guidance and skills. Ashan Kumar was replaced by the Anup Kumar the “Captain Cool” of the Indian Kabaddi Team. Anup Kumar, an exceptional former professional Indian Kabaddi player who helped India win Asian Games in 2010 & 2014 and Kabaddi World Cup 2016 and even captained U Mumba in season 2 announced his retirement in 2018 and this year he will be instructing Puneri Paltan.
What to expect?
While several notable names are in the list of elite retained players, there are some who have performed magnificently are not yet retained by their franchises. Siddharth Desai who won the best debutant last season and Monu Goyat who received the highest bid last season are amongst them.
Whereas from the international player pool South Korea’s Jang Kun Lee, Iran’s Abozar Mighani, Meraj Sheykh and Fazel Atrachali have already been retained by the franchises.
PKL’s history has watched some biggest names being fetched at increasingly high amounts each year. With big names, exciting youngsters and some amazingly talented not retained players in the fray, the bids are definitely going to breach the one-crore mark.