Pro Kabaddi League's (PKL) 10th edition is set to get underway on December 2, the organizers of the League announced on Thursday. The release also stated that PKL 10 will see the return of the caravan format, where the league would travel to the home cities of each of the 12 teams.
The news comes around three weeks before the PKL player auctions, which will be held in Mumbai on September 8 and 9.
PKL goes back to the caravan format after two years, where PKL 8 was played in a bio-bubble in Bengaluru due to the coronavirus pandemic and PKL 9 was held across Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad and Mumbai.
Speaking on the announcement, Anupam Goswami, Head Sports Leagues, Mashal Sports and PKL's League Commissioner said, "We have witnessed kabaddi spreading across India as a sport people love to watch and play through the success of the last nine seasons of PKL. Now, with our landmark tenth edition, we are excited to grow the sport and continue to be the platform that has seen talent emerge from across the world to shape the future of kabaddi."
The player auctions are bound to be fiercely contested this time around as a bunch of superstars, including the likes of Pawan Kumar Sehrawat, Maninder Singh, Mohammadreza Shadlloui and Fazel Atrachali are all in the auction pool. A total of 84 players were retained by the 12 teams, which included top players such as last season's MVP Arjun Deshwal (Jaipur Pink Panthers), Naveen Kumar (Dabang Delhi), Pardeep Narwal (UP Yoddhas) and Aslam Inamdar (Puneri Paltan).
While PKL 10 will begin on December 2, India's biggest kabaddi stars will be in action before that at the Asian Games. The Indian team, led by coach Ashan Kumar and captain Pawan Sehrawat, will look to wrestle back the Asian Games gold medal that they had lost to Iran in 2018. India is the most successful team at the Asian level - having won gold in every edition of the Asian Games since 1990. The team recently beat Iran to win the Asian Kabaddi Championships and is currently training in Bengaluru.