Why is Raider Pardeep Narwal valued high in the Pro Kabaddi league?

This is a huge amount for any athlete but many pundits claim that for Pradeep Narwal it just may be a bargain price. Let's see why.

Pradeep Narwal began his career in the Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) with Bengaluru Bulls in season 2. But Bengaluru, being a star-studded team, didn't provide many playing chances to the young talent. Pradeep scored only 9 points in that season. But his career took a massive jump when he was transferred to Patna Pirates in season 3. It is here that Pradeep Narwal made all the record books his own.

Leading the attack with Rohit Kumar, Pradeep Narwal wreaked havoc on the opposition’s defence. The duo was unstoppable and took Patna to its first title. In his 2nd season, only Pradeep became the leading point scorer with 121 points. But this was just the beginning for this superstar from Sonipat. In the next season, with Rohit Kumar moving away, Pradeep showed the making of a true champion and stepped up his game even further. He scored 131 raid points, 2nd highest in the league. And who can forget his masterful performance in the finals against Jaipur Pink Panthers where he paved the way for a successful title defence by record 16 points. This season he became the youngest Most Valuable Player in the PKL.

But this story gets better and better. It was the Pro Kabaddi League season 5 that established Pradeep Narwal as the undisputed king of raiders. The stats that he accumulated in this season seem unreal by a big margin. Dubbed as the ‘Dubki king’ by this time due to his signature move of the same name, Pradeep scored a whopping, unimaginable 369 points!!! The next highest was 219 Points only. He achieved this feat in 26 matches. This herculean effort took Patna Pirates to their title hat trick. In this year's final too his performance was phenomenal. He broke his record by scoring 19 raid points. This season also includes a 34 point game in the eliminator 2 against Haryana Steelers.

The ‘Dubki king’ gave stellar performances year after year with remarkable consistency. Since his second season in the league, he remained in the top 3 highest scorers consistently. He also holds the record for most points in a season (369) and is the first player two win both awards, Most Valuable Player (MVP) and the best raider, in the same season. He also is the first player to become the MVP twice.

By season 7, Pradeep Narwal became in a Kabaddi mat, what Ronaldo is on a football pitch. He became the first player to score 1000 career points, holding the record for scoring super 10s, more than 50 in his career now. He also broke the record for most points in a single raid against Haryana Steelers in season 5. He cleaned the Haryana's defence of 6 using his great agility and awareness on the mat, and of course, a dubki, scoring 8 points. He repeated the same feat against Bengal Warriors in season 7, removing 6 out of 7 seven defenders in just 1 raid. He also won the world cup with the national team and bagged a total of 3 gold medals in 4 outings with the national team.

So with virtually every raiding record in his name, it does seem that Pradeep Narwal is all that his fans claim him to be and maybe even more. With his stature in-game becoming so high that his mere presence on the mat makes the opponent team nervous, we can say that 1.65 crores are a bargain.