New Delhi, Nov 3:
Yogeshwar Dutt today emerged as the costliest Indian grappler in the inaugural Pro Wrestling League (PWL) auctions, picked up by Haryana for Rs. 39.70 lakhs even as two-time Olympic medallist Sushil Kumar was bought for Rs. 38.20 lakh by Uttar Pradesh.
However, it was Ukraine’s Oksana Herhel who drew the overall highest bid after being bought for a whopping Rs. 41.30 lakhs by Haryana.
A total of six franchises representing Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Mumbai and Bangalore purchased 54 wrestlers with each team getting to pick nine players — five Indians and four foreigners.
During the tournament, every team would be required to field mandatory five Indians and four foreign wrestlers, which would include five men and four women.
Each team today bought an icon player — Sushil (74kg), Yogeshwar (65kg), Narsingh Yadav (74kg), Geeta Phogat (Female 58kg), Adeline Gray (USA, 69+kg) and Sofia Mattison (Sweden, Female 53kg) — whose base price was kept at Rs. 33 lakhs.
The bid for the Olympic and World Championship winners also started at the base price of Rs. 33 lakhs and each team had a purse of Rs. 2 crore.
After Yogeshwar, London Olympic bronze medallist, and Sushil, Narsingh expectedly picked up the third highest amount among Indian wrestlers with Bengaluru buying him for Rs. 34.50 lakhs.
Mumbai bought Adeline for Rs. 37 lakhs.
Geeta and Sofia went for their base price of Rs. 33 lakh each to Punjab and Delhi teams, respectively.
About 100 top international wrestlers from 25 countries, including Olympic and World Championship stars, went under the hammer today.
Meanwhile, other Indians — Amit Dahiya (57kg), Rahul Aware (57kg), Bajrang (65kg), Amit Dhankar (65kg), Mausam Khatri (97kg), Satyavrat (97kg), Hitender (125kg), Vinesh Phogat (Female 48kg) and Babita Kumari (Female 53kg) — also managed to bag good prices at the auction.
Babita, whose base price was Rs. 23 lakhs, was finally bought by UP for Rs. 34.10 lakhs after an aggressive bidding by Punjab and UP, while Vinesh with a base price of Rs 20 lakhs, was sold to Delhi for Rs 29.70 lakhs.
Satyavrat bagged Rs. 20 lakhs from UP franchise and Mausam was bought for 16 lakhs by Punjab after starting at base price of Rs. 10 lakhs each. (PTI)
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