Telugu Titans wanted Pawan Sehrawat at any cost!

Pawan Sehrawat

India's Asian Games gold medal-winning kabaddi team captain, Pawan Sehrawat was the most expensive buy at the Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) auction. Telugu Titans (TT) bought him for a whopping Rs 2.60cr in Mumbai on Monday.

Though Telugu team's head coach Srinivas Reddy admitted that it is an expensive buy, he revealed that he wanted to have the Delhi-based raider in his team at any cost.

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"Definitely, it's crucial for Telugu Titans to have him [Sehrawat]. We had Rahul Chaudhari, Sukesh Hegde and Deepak Hooda in our team. The team were performing very well and they had a good time. I wanted to bring glory back to Telugu Titans and that's why we backed our India captain, who is a strike raider and a champion player," Reddy told mid-day on Tuesday.

When asked about the strategy behind spending more than Rs 2.5cr on Sehrawat, Reddy said: "We wanted to beat Haryana Steelers [who were in the fray along with Bengaluru Bulls]. We maintained that budget to match the maximum bid and fortunately we got Pawan."

Reddy reckoned his new team are balanced, but they need to work hard to overcome challenges.

Except Pawan and [defender] Parvesh Bhainswal, the others are young and inexperienced. We need to groom them, they need to train well. They are very new to PKL," Reddy stressed.

Meanwhile, Iran's Mohammadreza Shadloui emerged the most expensive foreign player, bought for Rs 2.35cr by Puneri Paltan.

Maninder Singh returned to Bengal Warriors after the franchise utilised the FBM card (Final Bid Match) to combat Telugu Titans's bid of Rs 2.12cr. The 10th PKL season starts on December 2.