Kabaddi is a popular sport in the Indian subcontinent and other surrounding Asian countries. It is played between two teams of 7 players and the objective of the game is for a single player on offence referred to as a ‘raider’ to run into the opposing team’s half of the court, touching out as many of their players and turning back to his own half of the court without being tackled by the defenders within 30 seconds. This game was popularized as a competitive sport in the 20th century. It is the national sport of Bangladesh. This game is known by different names in different parts of the Indian subcontinent such as kabaddi or chedugudu in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana; kabaddi in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Kerala; kabaddi, komonti or ha-du-du in West Bengal and Bangladesh; bhavatik in Maldives, kauddi or kabaddi in the Punjab region; hu-tu-tu in Western India.
This game is a sport that was developed and centred on jallikattu, which was common among the Ayar tribal people who lived in the Mullai geographical region in the ancient Tamil Nadu. Modern Kabaddi is a synthesis of the game played in various forms. India has been first credited with having helped to popularize Kabaddi as a competitive sport around the world. The Pro Kabaddi League or abbreviated to PKL is an Indians men’s professional Kabaddi League. It was launched in 2014 and is broadcasted on Star Sports. This League has 8 seasons and was later postponed due to the pandemic. This was influenced by the popularity of Kabaddi tournaments during the Asian Games, 2006. The format of the competition was influenced by the Cricket Indian Premier League T20 Cricket tournament. The first edition of the tournament was played in 2014 with 8 franchises representing various cities in India. The Pro Kabaddi League used the franchise based model for the first season which was held in 2014. The inaugural season had 43.5 crore viewers which was second to the 2014 Indian Premier League’s 44.2 crore viewers. So let’s look at the top 5 Kabaddi teams which you must keep your eyes at for the upcoming season.
Bengal Warriors
Bengal warriors is another popular kabaddi team based in Kolkata, West Bengal which plays in the Pro Kabaddi League. They won the trophy for the first time in 2019 by defeating the Dabang Delhi KC. The team is currently led by Maninder Singh. The coach for this team is Kasinatha Baskaran. The team plays its home matches at the Netaji Indoor Stadium. Bengal warriors is a Kolkata based franchise owned by future group promoted by Kishore Biyani this team had poor campaigns in the first two seasons. However, the team’s performance improved during the third season as they qualified for the finals in 2016. After the disappointing season in 2016 Pro Kabaddi League, they totally reshuffled their squad. Later, the team consistently qualified for the matches in the upcoming year in 2019. They qualified to the PKL final for the first time in the history by beating U Mumba in the arena. This team made a strong comeback by winning the finals with a 39-34 margin without their captain Maninder Singh who sustained the shoulder injury in the penultimate league stage.
Bengal warriors has the most balanced team with a nice blend of experience players as well as youngsters. All the players are keen on learning from the best of the game. Bengal Warriors have a good attacking team. This team has some big names like Maninder Singh and Deepak Niwas Hooda as senior players.
| Player Name | Position |
| Deepak Niwas Hooda | All-Rounders |
| Rohit | All-Rounders |
| Ajinkya Rohidas Kapre | All-Rounders |
| Ashish Kumar (Sangwan) | All-Rounders |
| Balaji D | All-Rounders |
| Vinod Kumar | All-Rounders |
| Manoj Gowda K. | All-Rounders |
| Shrikant Jadhav | Raiders |
| Aslam Saja Mohamed Thambi | Raiders |
| Maninder Singh | Raiders |
| R Guhan | Raiders |
| Suyog Baban Gaikar | Raiders |
| Parshant Kumar | Raiders |
| Akash Pikalmunde | Raiders |
| Girish Ernak | Defenders |
| Amit Sheoran | Defenders |
| Parveen Satpal | Defenders |
| Shubham Shinde | Defenders |
| Soleiman Pahlevani | Defenders |
| Surender Nada | Defenders |
| Sakthivel R | Defenders |
| Vaibhav Bhausaheb Garje | Defenders |
Patna Pirates
Patna Pirates is the Patna City franchise and is one of the most successful teams in the Pro Kabaddi League. This is the only team to win the title thrice in a row in season 3, 4 and 5 during the Vivo Pro Kabaddi. The team has proved themselves as the real champions by giving the three consecutive wins. The Patna Pirates is owned by KVS Energy and Sports Limited. It believes in the spirit of the pirate, that is, the spirit of not letting go, of using the environment to advantage, of striking where the enemy is least aware. The name is not kept after a criminal meaning of the word but after the Greek word “peirin” which means “to attack”. The KVS Energy and Sports Pvt. Limited is owned by Rajesh Shah, Co-Chairman and Managing Director of Mukund Limited and his son Mr. Kaustubh Vir Shah. Patna Pirates is the first venture into sporting territory for them. With a fan base of 6.31 lakh verified followers in facebook, 592k on twitter, 265k on instagram, Patna Pirates had a fairly successful season 1 and 2. It also became the champions of season 3, 4 and 5 consecutively. It is the only team to have a hattrick win in consecutive years and coached by Ravi Shetty.
Patna Pirates is the most successful team and one of the top teams and Pro Kabaddi League Patna was the runner up for the last season. They had won the last season’s “defensive core for the season” as well. Therefore, there was a lot of expectations from the defence team. Ravi Shetty is the head coach of the squad. He has plenty of experience when it comes to coaching Kabaddi teams on a big stage but now overall has a great squad with enough balance.
| Player name | Positions |
| Rohit Gulia | All-Rounders |
| Mohammadreza Shadloui Chiyaneh | All-Rounders |
| Sajin Chandrasekar | All-Rounders |
| Abdul Insamam S | All-Rounders |
| Daniel Omondi Odhiambo | All-Rounders |
| Sagar Kumar | All-Rounders |
| Ranjit Venkatramana Naik | Raiders |
| Anand Surendra Tomar | Raiders |
| Rohit | Raiders |
| Anuj Kumar | Raiders |
| Monu | Raiders |
| Vishwas S | Raiders |
| Sushil Gulia | Raiders |
| Sachin | Raiders |
| Shivam Chaudhari | Defenders |
| Manish | Defenders |
| Naveen Sharma | Defenders |
| Thiyagarajan Yuvaraj | Defenders |
| Sunil | Defenders |
| Neeraj Kumar | Defenders |
Gujarat Giants
Gujarat Giants was earlier known as “Gujarat Fortune Giants”. It is a men’s kabaddi team based in Ahmedabad Gujarat which plays in the Pro Kabaddi League. This team is currently led by Chandran Ranjit and his coached by Ram Mehar Singh. This team is owned by Adani Wilmar Limited. The Giants play their home matches at the Arena by TranStadia. This team reached the finals in both the seasons during their 2017 and 2018 and finished as runner ups and both occasions to Patna Pirates and Bengaluru Bulls respectively. The fray in 2017, the team is known for its slogan “garjega Gujarat”. The team achieved to make its way to the finals for two consecutive years. Adani Sports Line believes in nursing home grown sports at the grass-roots level in line with its philosophy of nation building. The team was well known for the logo. The Gujarat giants is an illustration of a muscular man. It has a tilak on the forehead of the mascot and also wears a red dhoti. The muscular man symbolises Gujarat Giants’ core values of power, strength and vigor which is much needed in the game of kabaddi. The logo catches the action and emotion of an energetic and fierce man.
Chandran Ranjeet is the head coach of Gujarat Giants. He was the head coach of Patna Pirates earlier when they won the PKL 3 times and that was when Gujarat was struggling in terms of bigger games. So the presence of the experienced coach was an amazing edition for them to improve their actual game. Gujarat has a sturdy defence with Rinku Narwal, Baldev Singh and Sandeep Kandola who forms the core of the defence.
| Player Name | Positions |
| Arkam Shaikh | All-Rounders |
| Shankar Bhimraj Gadai | All-Rounders |
| Rohan Singh | All-Rounders |
| Sonu Singh | Raiders |
| Parteek Dhaiya | Raiders |
| Sonu | Raiders |
| Sohit | Raiders |
| Gaurav Chhikara | Raiders |
| Sawin | Raiders |
| Purna Singh | Raiders |
| Dong Geon Lee | Raiders |
| Mahendra Ganesh Rajput | Raiders |
| Rakesh | Raiders |
| Pardeep Kumar | Raiders |
| Chandran Ranjit | Raiders |
| Kapil | Defenders |
| Baldev Singh | Defenders |
| Manuj | Defenders |
| Ujjval Singh | Defenders |
| Vinod Kumar | Defenders |
| Sourav Gulia | Defenders |
| YoungChang Ko | Defenders |
| Sandeep Kandola | Defenders |
| Rinku Narwal | Defenders |
Bengaluru Bulls
Bengaluru Bulls is a kabaddi team based in Bengaluru that plays in the Pro Kabaddi League. This team were champions of season 6 and is led by Pawan Sehrawat. The coach of this team is Randhir Singh. The Bengaluru Bulls play their home matches at the Kanteerava Indoor Stadium. These players are one of the most successful teams in PKL history. They won the trophy for the first time by defeating the Gujarat FortuneGiants in the year 2018-2019 season. The team was also the runner up to U Mumba in 2015 and they also reach the semi finals in the inaugural 2014 season. The team is owned by Cosmic Global Media. Bengaluru Bulls did well at the auction table in the PKL 2022 by retaining the core of its defence unit.
| Player Name | Position |
| Sachin Narwal | All-Rounders |
| Rahul Khatik | All-Rounders |
| Bharat | Raiders |
| Vikash Kandola | Raiders |
| More G B | Raiders |
| Harmanjit Singh | Raiders |
| Neeraj Narwal | Raiders |
| Nageshor Tharu | Raiders |
| Lal Mohar Yadav | Raiders |
| Rohit Kumar | Defenders |
| Saurabh Nandal | Defenders |
| Vinod Lachmayya Naik | Defenders |
| Mahender Singh | Defenders |
| Mayur Jagannath Kadam | Defenders |
| Aman | Defenders |
| Yash Hooda | Defenders |
| Rajnesh | Defenders |
Dabang Delhi K.C.
Dabang Delhi KC is a Kabaddi club based in New Delhi, India that plays in the pro Kabaddi League. This team is currently led by Naveen Kumar Goyat and his coached by Krishan Kumar Hooda. The team is owned by Radha Kapoor. The team played their home matches at the Thyagaraj Sports Complex, New Delhi. The team has won their maiden Vivo Pro Kabaddi League title defeating Patna Pirates in the year 2021-22 season final. Dabang Delhi K.C. are also known as ‘The Eagles’ as the eagle represents the Team’s energy. The eagle in their emblem symbolizes strength, perspicacity and courage. It is also considered the “king of the skies”. The Dabang Delhi K.C. logo has three attributes do it- the wings symbolizes the wing of the eagle, the shield is the symbol of a warrior and the gold is desire of always being the number one.
This team shows the spirit of the North as it holds the exclusive rights of the Delhi NCR territory and is one of the three teams that represent northern part in the Vivo Pro Kabaddi League. Dabang Delhi KC is a venture of DO IT Sports Management India private Limited which is founded by Miss Radha Kapoor, a creative entrepreneur and only female team owner in Delhi who promotes the spirit of women entrepreneurship. The DO IT Sports Management India private Limited was incorporated as a part of the DO IT Creations Group with the vision of promoting athletes, sports, facilities and events across India. Dabang Delhi KC retained Naveen Kumar and Vijay Malik last year. The retentions were the obvious ones. Talking about the defence unit, it lacks experience if compared to the last season’s defence unit indivisuals. Surprisingly, the youngster Naveen Kumar is the captain for the team. The experts were skeptical about Vijay Malik’s contribution while it was interesting to see how he further performs.
| Player Name | Position |
| Reza Katoulinezhad | All-Rounders |
| Tejas Maruti Patil | All-Rounders |
| Vijay | All-Rounders |
| Ashu Malik | Raiders |
| Manjeet | Raiders |
| Ashish Narwal | Raiders |
| Suraj Panwar | Raiders |
| Naveen Kumar | Raiders |
| Sandeep Kumar (Dhull) | Defenders |
| Vinay Kumar | Defenders |
| Monu | Defenders |
| Vijay | Defenders |
| Dipak | Defenders |
| Krishan | Defenders |
| Ravi Kumar | Defenders |
| Md. Liton Ali | Defenders |
| Anil Kumar | Defenders |
| Amit Hooda | Defenders |
| Aakash | Defenders |
| Vishal | Defenders |
