After five highly successful seasons, the VIVO Pro Kabaddi League, India’s biggest domestic sporting league, gears up for yet another season of thrilling action, with the announcement of the ‘Elite Retained Players’.

The League announced the players who would continue their association with their respective franchises for VIVO ProKabaddi Season VI starting 19th October 2018. Marking the first milestone for season VI, a total of 20 players from Season V were retained by their respective franchises.

TEAM: ELITE RETAINED PLAYERS

Bengal Warriors: Surjeet Singh, Maninder Singh
Bengaluru Bulls: Rohit Kumar
Dabang Delhi K.C.: Meraj Sheykh
Gujarat Fortunegiants:
Sachin, Sunil Kumar, Mahendra Rajput
Haryana Steelers:
Kuldeep Singh
Patna Pirates:
Pardeep Narwal, Jaideep, Jawahar Dagar, Manish Kumar
Puneri Paltan:
Sandeep Narwal, Rajesh Mondal, More GB, Girish Maruti Ernak
Tamil Thalaivas:
Ajay Thakur, Amit Hooda, C. Arun
Telugu Titans:
Nilesh Salunke, Mohsen Maghsoudloujafari

The ‘Elite Player Retention’ 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 choosing for the upcoming season.

“The league is strongly in favour of team stability and instituting it at a policy level to enable strong team structures,” VIVO Pro Kabaddi League Commissioner Anupam Goswami said. “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 top priority for us. Interventions like ‘Elite Player Retention’ and the ‘Future Kabaddi Heroes’ programme will go a long way towards ensuring that VIVO Pro Kabaddi Season VI offers the highest level of talent and competition for India’s own sport,” he concluded.