The Pro Kabaddi League announced its full list of retained players ahead of the auction for the 10th edition of the league next month. The auction will be held on September 8 and 9 in Mumbai.
A total of 84 players were retained across three categories with 22 in the Elite Retained Players (ERP) category, 24 in the Retained Young Players (RYP) section and 38 in Existing New Young Players (ENYP).
Almost all the established stars find themselves back in the auction pool barring the league’s most successful raider Pardeep Narwal who has been retained by UP Yoddha. Puneri Paltan has not retained the Iranian duo of Fazel Atrachali and Mohammad Nabibakhsh while Tamil Thalaivas has released Pawan Sehrawat, the most expensive player of all time (₹2.26 crore), after he missed the last season due to an ACL injury.
Patna Pirates has released talismanic left-corner Mohammadreza Shadloui Chiyaneh who had two remarkable seasons with the side. Maninder Singh, who led Bengal Warriors to the title in Season 7, and Siddharth Desai, a Telugu Titans mainstay for the past few years, also find themselves back on the auction table.
There is, however, an option to bring these players back to their teams using the Final Bid Match rule.