MUMBAI: Day 1 of VIVO Pro Kabaddi season VII player auctions concluded here successfully in Mumbai with the first lot of multi-millionaires this season.
The player auctions witnessed Siddharth Desai sold to Telugu Titans for Rs 14.5 million and Nitin Tomar retained by Puneri Paltan for Rs 12 million.
For some context though, it is worth noting that last season’s PKL saw six players hit the Rs 10 million and above mark. And while Desai was not in the reckoning in 2018, Tomar, who went to the Pune franchise for Rs 11.5 million, was second on the price rankings list last season as well.
From Puneri Paltan retaining the raider to Parvesh Bhainswal being retained by Gujurat Fortunegiants; the player auction for Season VII is cognizant of the significance of squad continuity and long-term association of players with their respective teams.
With domestic category A stars, and overseas players leading the bid-chart for the day, the auctions saw Crorepati’s emerge, with franchises going all out in the bidding game to build a strong squad for the upcoming league.
Marquee players Siddharth Desai, Nitin Tomar, Rahul Chaudhari, Monu Goyat Rishank Devadiga and Sandeep Narwal were the top buys in the auction, picked up by Teams Telugu Titans, Puneri Paltans, Tamil Talaivas, UP Yodha and UMumba respectively. Mohammad Esmaeil Nabibakhsh is the highest valued international player, at Rs 7.775 million bought by Bengal Warriors.
List of players picked by each team and bids they attracted (1 crore = 10 million; 1 lakh = 100,000):
Bengal Warriors
Elite Retained Players – Baldev Singh, Maninder Singh
Retained Young Players – Adarsh T, Ravindra Kumawat
New Young Players – Sahil
Mohammad Nabibakhsh – Rs. 77.75 lakh
Jeeva Kumar – Rs. 31 lakh
Rinku Narwal – Rs. 20 lakh
Mohammad Taghi – Rs. 15.5 lakh
Bengaluru Bulls
Elite Retained Players – Rohit Kumar, Pawan Kumar Sehrawat, Ashish Kumar
Retained Young Players – Amit Sheoran, Sumit Singh
New Young Players – Mohit Sehrawat, Banty
Mahender Singh – Rs. 80 lakh
Sanjay Shreshtha – Rs. 10 lakh
Lal Mohar Yadav – Rs. 10 lakh
Dabang Delhi KC
Retained players – Meraj Sheykh, Joginder Narwal
Chandran Ranjit – Rs. 70 lakh
Ravinder Pahal – Rs. 61 lakh
Vijay Malik – Rs. 41 lakh
Vishal Mane – Rs. 28.5 lakh
Saeed Ghaffari – Rs. 16.5 lakh
Gujarat Fortunegiants
Elite Retained Players – Sachin Tanwar, Sunil Kumar
Retained Young Players – Lalit Chaudhary, Rohit Gulia
Parvesh Bhainswal – Rs. 75 lakh
Rituraj Koravi – Rs. 30.5 lakh
Vinod Kumar – Rs. 26 lakh
Abolfazl Maghsoudloumahali – Rs. 15.75 lakh
Haryana Steelers
Elite Retained Players – Kuldeep Singh, Vikash Khandola
New Young Players – Vinay
Prashanth Kumar Rai – Rs. 77 lakh
Dharmaraj Cheralathan – Rs. 38.5 lakh
Ravi Kumar – Rs. 20 lakh
Amir Mohammad Maleki – Rs. 12.5 lakh
Tim Phonchoo – Rs. 10 lakh
Jaipur Pink Panthers
Elite Retained Players – Deepak Niwas Hooda, Sandeep Kumar Dhull
Retained Young Players – Ajinkya Pawar, Lokesh Kaushik
New Young Players – Pavan TR, Sachin Narwal, Sushil Gulia
Amit Hooda – Rs. 53 lakh
Deepak Narwal – Rs. 30.5 lakh
Nilesh Salunke – Rs. 23.5 lakh
Sunil Siddhgawali – Rs. 20 lakh
Dong Gyu Kim – Rs. 10 lakh
Malinda Chaturanga – Rs. 10 lakh
Patna Pirates
Elite Retained Players – Pardeep Narwal, Vikas Jaglan, Jawahar Dagar
New Young Players – Mohit
Surender Nada – Rs. 77 lakh
Jang Kun Lee – Rs. 40 lakh
Mohammad Maghsoudlou – Rs. 35 lakh
Jaideep – Rs. 35 lakh
Hadi Oshtorak – Rs. 16 lakh
Puneri Paltan
Elite Retained players – Nitin Tomar – Rs. 1.20 crore
Manjeet – Rs. 63 lakh
Surjeet Singh – Rs. 56 lakh
Girish Maruti Ernak – Rs. 33 lakh
Darshan Kadian – Rs 20 lakh
Pawan Kumar – Rs. 20 lakh
Emad Sedaghat – Rs. 11.25 lakh
Hadi Tijak – Rs. 10 lakh
Tamil Thalaivas
Elite Retained Players – Ajay Thakur, Manjeet Chhillar, Victor Onyango Obiero
New Young Players – Himanshu, M. Abhishek
Rahul Chaudhari – Rs. 94 lakh
Ran Singh – Rs. 55 lakh
Mohit Chhillar – Rs. 45 lakh
Milad Shiebak – Rs. 10 lakh
Telugu Titans
Elite Retained Players – Armaan, Farhad Rahimi Milaghardan, Krushna Madane
New Young Players – Manish, Akash Choudhary
Siddharth Desai – Rs. 1.45 crore
Abozar Mighani – Rs. 75 lakh
Vishal Bhardwaj – Rs. 60 lakh
Duet Jennings – Rs. 10 lakh
U Mumba
Elite Retained Players – Fazel Atrachali, Rajaguru Subramanian, Arjun Deshwal
Retained Young Players – Anil, Gaurav Kumar, Mohit Balyan
Sandeep Narwal – Rs. 89 lakh
Rohit Baliyan – Rs. 35 lakh
Dong Geon Lee – Rs. 25 lakh
Young Chang Ko – Rs. 10 lakh
UP Yoddha
Elite Retained Players – Amit Narwal, Sachin Kumar
Retained Young Players – Nitesh Kumar, Aashish Nagar, Azad Singh, Arkam Shaikh
Monu Goyat – Rs. 93 lakh
Shrikant Jadhav – Rs. 68 lakh
Rishank Devadiga – Rs. 61 lakh
Mohsen Maghsoudloujafari – Rs. 21 lakh
Masud Karim – Rs. 10 lakh
A total of 441 players were up for grabs at the two-day auction for PKL’s seventh edition. Out of this, 53 players were from 13 nations, and 72 came from the league`s New Young Players Programme (NYP), a nationwide talent scouting programme organised in 12 cities, which received an overwhelming response with 2,991 participants.
