Pro Kabaddi League 2017 Season 5 is expected to be the biggest season in the history of the championship so far with 12 teams that will be divided into a new format of two zones. Zone A is supposed to be made up of Delhi, Haryana, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Pune, and Mumbai. Zone B will be made up of Chennai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Patna, Kolkata, and Lucknow. In all, this season is expected to feature 132 games. The league stage of the season will start from July 28 and end on October 20. In the league phase each team is supposed to play 22 matches. 15 of these games will be intra-zone and the rest will be played on an inter-zonal basis.
What is new this season?
It is expected that each venue will host 11 matches and that each team will play six games at home. The playoff stage will see six games and will run from October 22 to 28. This stage will feature the best three teams from each zone, which can be interpreted as a way of rewarding consistent performance. In the intra-zone phase each team in a zone will face the other team in that zone three times. This means that at this stage they will play 15 games each. In the inter-zone phase that will last three weeks each team will face the teams from the other zone once. The penultimate week of this phase would see wild-card matches that will be decided by a mid-season draw. The playoff stage will be played in Mumbai and Chennai. This season the organizers are trying to provide something different for the viewers. They want to provide a higher level of entertainment and thrill. This is the reason why innovations like various stages in the league phase and wild-card matches are being organized this time around. Alongwith the eight established teams, four teams will be making their debuts this season. All the teams may be mentioned as below:
- Bengal Warriors
- Bengaluru Bulls
- Dabang Delhi KC
- Jaipur Pink Panthers
- Patna Pirates
- Puneri Paltan
- Telugu Titans
- U Mumba
- Gujarat Fortunegiants
- UP Yoddha
- Tamil Thalaivas
- Haryana Steelers
Players to watch out for Following are expected to be the top defenders and allrounders of the ensuing season:
- Manoj Kumar
- Shrikant Tewthia
- Mahipal Narwal
- Sachin Shingade
- Somvir Shekhar
- Dharmalaj Cherlathan
The best raiding pairs for the tournament according to experts are:
- Deepak Niwas Hooda and Rajesh Mondal
- Pardeep Narwal and Monu Goyat
- Rahul Chaudhari and Nilesh Salunke
- Nitin Tomar and Rishank Devadiga
- Anup Kumar and Kashiling Adake
Following are expected to the best young players this season:
- Manoj Dhull
- Deepak Narwal
- Nitin Tomar
- Amit Hooda
- Pardeep Narwal
Apart from these there would also be a significant amount of limelight on these players who are stars in Indian kabaddi:
- Ajay Thakur
- Jasvir Singh
- Mohit Chhillar
- Surender Nada
- Surjeet
- Kiran Parmar
- Manjeet Chhillar
History of the tournament
The first ever season of the tournament was organized in 2014. It started on July 26 and ended on August 31. In all, eight teams took part and played twice against each team in the round robin stage. Apart from that there were two semi finals, a third place game, and the final. U Mumba played the first ever game against Telugu Titans. The final was played at Mumbai on August 31 between Jaipur Pink Panthers and U Mumba. Jaipur beat Mumba by 35-24. The second edition of Pro Kabaddi League took place from July 18 to August 23 in 2015. The structure of league phase and playoff games was similar to the previous season. The final was once again played at Mumbai between U Mumba and Bengaluru Bulls. U Mumba defeated Bengaluru Bulls by 36-30. Telugu Titans took the third place. The third edition of the tournament was organized from January 30, 2016 to March 5, 2016. Patna Pirates beat U Mumba in the finals with a scoreline of 31-28 in the final at Delhi. Puneri Paltan took the third place. The fourth season was organized from June 25 to July 31. Patna Pirates once again defeated Jaipur Pink Panthers at Hyderabad. This was also the season that saw the launch of a women’s professional kabaddi league named Women’s Kabaddi Challenge (WKC). There were three teams – Icy Divas, Storm Queens, and Fire Birds. The final of this tournament was held alongwith the men’s final at Hyderabad and saw Storm Queens defeat Fire Birds.
