New teams for three franchises

With ProKabaddi League’s season six auctions scheduled on May 30 and 31, franchises have begun forming player strategies and sizing up opponents.

The Elite Retained Players (ERP) option allows franchises to retain players, except Jaipur Pink Panthers, U Mumba and UP Yoddha, who have decided to build completely new teams.

Patna Pirates is the defending champion.

The 12-team auction will see a new rule, the Final Bid Match (FBM) comes into force, allowing teams to decide whether they want to retain some of the players they let go.

Under this rule, franchises may match the final bid for a player who was in the squad in the fifth season. Depending on the number of elite players retained, the new rule may be used either once or twice.

At the end of a round of bidding, the franchise will be invited to match the final bid. If the reply is ‘Yes’ the player will go to the franchise exercising the FBM option. If the reply is ‘No’, the player shall be allocated to the franchise bidding the highest according to the auction process.

PKL has introduced this rule to allow team managements to build teams based on continuity, in line with global leagues that follow similar practices.

A total of 422 players will be drafted into the auction pool of which 58 are overseas players and 87 from the Future Kabaddi Heroes (FKH) programme, a nationwide scouting initiative.

According to the new team composition rules, franchises may choose between 18-25 players to form a team with a total salary purse of ₹4 crore. A maximum of three players from the FKH programme and two to four foreigners may be chosen by each franchise.

Pirates have retained four players (Pardeep Narwal, Manish Kumar, Jawahar Dagar and Jaideep).