Mumbai: Fazel Atrachali becomes the first ever VIVO Pro Kabaddi Player to enter the 1 crore club was bought by U Mumba at a record breaking price.
Atrachali went into the auction at a base price of 20 Lakhs, registering a 5x increase in value to be bought at 1 crore. His Iranian counterpart, Abozar went to Telugu Titans for 76 Lakh. The Defender Ziaur Rahman was the third highest bid player in the auctions going to Bengal Warriors for 33.25 Lakhs. Jang Kun Lee returns to Bengal Warriors who exercised their Final Bid Match card at 33 Lakh.
U Mumba Team Owner, Ronnie Screwvala: "We wanted to be strong in defence. We had an extremely strong defence in season 1 and season 2 and that was part of the reason why we bargained for Fazal so fiercely. Fazal is someone who has played with us and we are quite happy to have him back."
"We wanted to be sure that we got who we wanted rather than going right till the end and then have to hastily pick a player. You need a minimum of 2 international players, instead we picked 3. We are happy to have the ex-Iranian coach, Golan Raza as our coach and his insight helps us to cherry pick international talent right in the beginning," he said.
Atrachali said, "I am very happy to be back in my second home- U Mumba. I have immense respect for the U- Mumba team because it is where it all began for me. The fact that I beat the record for the highest bid in VIVO Pro Kabaddi is truly an incredible feeling." (UNI)