After five highly successful seasons, the VIVO Pro Kabaddi League, Indiaas biggest domestic sporting league, gears up for yet another season of thrilling action, with the announcement of the a?Elite Retained Playersa?.

Pardeep Narwal Pro Kabaddi
Three-time champions Patna Pirates retained star raider Pardeep Narwal

The League today announced the players who would continue their association with their respective franchises for VIVO Pro Kabaddi Season VI starting 19th October 2018. Marking the first milestone for season VI, a total of 21 players from Season V were retained by their respective franchises.

The a?Elite Player Retentiona? framework is a key constituent to build team continuity for the longer term and the franchises were thus encouraged to retain key players of their choice for the upcoming season.

Anupam Goswami, League Commissioner, VIVO Pro Kabaddi said, a?The League is strongly in favour of team stability and instituting it at a policy level to enable strong team structures. The player retention framework has been strengthened to encourage continuity and a longer term association between player and franchise, to the benefit of both. Squad talent, formation and development have always been the top priority for us. Interventions like a?Elite Player Retentiona? and the a?Future Kabaddi Heroesa? programme will go a long way towards ensuring that VIVO Pro Kabaddi Season VI offers the highest level of talent and competition for Indiaas own sport.a?

The list of a?Elite Retained Playersa? is as given below:

Bengal Warriors:ASurjeet Singh, Maninder Singh

ABengaluru Bulls:ARohit Kumar

Dabang Delhi:AMeraj Sheykh

Gujarat Fortunegiants:ASachin, Sunil Kumar, Mahendra Ganesh Rajput

Haryana Steelers:AKuldeep Singh

Jaipur Pink Panthers:ANo players retained

Patna Pirates:APardeep Narwal, Jaideep, Jawahar Dagar, Manish Kumar

Puneri Paltan:ASandeep Narwal, Rajesh Mondal, Gurunath More, Girish Ernak

Tamil Thalaivas:AAjay Thakur, C Arun, Amit Hooda,

Telugu Titans:ANilesh Salunke,AMohsen Maghsoudloujafari

U Mumba:ANo players retained

UP Yoddha:ANo players retained

A total of 21 players have retained by nine franchises for season six, with three a U Mumba, Jaipur Pink Panthers and UP Yoddha; deciding against keeping any of their players from the previous campaign. Long-term captains Anup Kumar and Rahul Chaudhari were not retained by their respective franchises U Mumba and Telugu Titans.

Anup and Chaudhari, however, weren’t the only high profile players not to be retained by the franchises as PKL’s most expensive player Nitin Tomar, national championship star Rishank Devadiga, corner defensive duo of Surender Nada and Mohit Chhillar, Manjeet Chhillar, Deepak Niwas Hooda, and Sukesh Hegde were all overlooked by their respective teams.

The sixth season of the Pro Kabaddi League will begin on 19 October 2018.

(Source: Star Sports Press Release)

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