PKL 2019: 3 players who have surprisingly been retained by their franchises ahead of the auction

The Pro Kabaddi League is back in the news after a long time as the PKL auction is set to take place on the 8th and 9th of April. The 12 playing teams have released the list of their retained players. As always, there are a few shocks and surprises regarding the teams' retention policies.

Some big names like Rishank Devadiga, Rahul Chaudhari, Nitin Tomar, Siddharth Desai, Monu Goyat, Sandeep Narwal, Girish Maruti Ernak, Rajesh Mondal, Surender Nada and Mohit Chhillar have been let go of by their respective franchises.

Most of the teams have opted to retain the players based on their current form and not upon their previous performances. While some of the decisions regarding the teams' retention policy might prove to be masterstrokes, the others might not work out as desired by the team management.

Here, we take a look at the players who have shockingly been retained by their franchises ahead of the auction.

#3 Manjeet Chhillar

Manjeet Chhillar, the 32-year-old all-rounder was retained by Tamil Thalaivas along with Ajay Thakur and Victor Onyango Obiero. Despite having the most tackle points in PKL history to his name, his performance has seen a steep decline over the years.

In the 19 matches he featured last season for Tamil Thalaivas, he could only garner a combined total of 67 points at a poor average of 3.53 points per match. Mighty Manjeet's dashing thigh holds and quickfire blocks have slowly faded away and have become a thing of past. Added to that, he was one of the weakest links in Tamil Thalaivas' defence.

He hasn't been able to contribute in the raiding department as he managed just 8 raid points out of 29 raids. With such poor returns, Tamil Thalaivas might have made a huge blunder by retaining the services of Manjeet Chhillar.