Surprising retention by teams ahead of Pro Kabaddi Season 7
Ahead of PKL 7, the teams have submitted their list of retained players, while there were some familiar faces, we look at the players surprisingly retained by teams ahead of Pro Kabaddi Season 7. The list features a Kenyan, 2 Telugu Titans all-rounders, 1 Patna Pirates all-rounder and a U.P Yoddha left cover defender.
Victor Obiero: Till PKL 6 Kenyan Players were just considered as squad fillers bought by franchisees to fill up the mandatory quota of 2 foreigners. They were considered more as tourists rather than Kabaddi players by PKL coaches, that is until PKL 7 when Tamil Thalaivas decided to retain the 18- year old Victor Obiero who himself only joined the team as a replacement player as Jae Min Lee suffered an injury. The Kenyan scored 6 raid points and impressed with a cameo against Jaipur in a losing cause, but despite that he would have been the last person expected to be retained by Tamil Thalaivas. Victor made history becoming the first Kenyan player to be retained by a team in PKL and surely coach Bhaskaran might have seen something in the strongly built teenager. 
Armaan: The lanky all-rounder was retained by the Telugu Titans much to the surprise of everybody. The 19-year old was sparingly used by the Telugu Titans last season, but he scored a Super 10 against a second-string Bengal Warriors side. The first Bihar born player to play in PKL was still not expected to be retained but surprisingly he was retained ahead of PKL 7. Telugu Titans will hope that Armaan performs and justifies the decision to retain him.
See Armaan strike a super raid
Mohsen Maghsoudlou: The 2nd Telugu Titans player to make the list Mohsen Maghsoudlou is another player who is surprisingly retained by the Titans ahead of PKL 7. The sprightly all-rounder is a utility player at best and spending in above of 30 lakhs for a player who scored less than 3 points per match doesn’t appear to be money well spent especially when they could have got him in the auction for less or could have used the money to buy the support raider that they have desperately lacked over the past 2 seasons.
Jawahar Dagar: Given Patna’s issues at right corner for the last 2 seasons a position Jawahar was manning you would have thought they finally part ways with Jawahar but instead Patna Pirates have once again retained Jawahar Dagar ahead of Pro Kabaddi Season 7. The 24- year old had a forgettable PKL 6 campaign managing just 17 successful tackles out of an attempted 59 tackles failing with a whopping 42 of his attempted 59 tackles. He didn’t pull his weight as an all-rounder either managing just 3 raid points out of which 2 were bonus points.
Amit. The U.P Yoddha defender is the last player to make the list, after being named as 1 of the 2 players alongside all-rounder Sachin to get retained ahead of PKL 7. The decision to retain him over Jeeva was surprising given the fact that Jeeva was far better than him playing a crucial role in U.P Yoddhas 3rd place finish in PKL 6. The 22-year old left cover defender Amit managed to score just 6 tackle points and succeeded with just 5 of his 31 attempted tackles and generally gifted points to the opposition through his hastiness and misjudgments. U.P Yoddha will hope that the young defender improves and plays a strong part in their fortunes in PKL 7.
