After 117 matches spread over 63 days across four cities, season 12 of the Pro Kabaddi League came to an end with Dabang Delhi crowned champions, defeating Puneri Paltan in a thrilling final. PKL 12 debuted a revamped format, including tiebreakers, a shortened league stage and an eight-team playoff stage. It proved to be quite a success, with this being hailed as the most competitive season ever.
As ever, we reflect on the season gone by with a report card for every franchise (in order of league standing from first to last).
Puneri Paltan: A-
It was all about fine margins for Puneri Paltan. They topped the league stage with the same points as the eventual champions Dabang Delhi, had a far greater points difference (88 vs 38), took Delhi to tiebreakers thrice, and would have done so too in the final if not for a Fazel Atrachali tackle.
And yet, at the end of the season, they stand with an unwanted record of three finals in four years, but only one trophy. There isn't even much to solve for the Paltan -- they possess the most balanced team, with a raiding unit that doesn't let up in Aditya Shinde, Pankaj Mohite and Aslam Inamdar, while Gaurav Khatri marshals a defence that is unquestionably the best in the league. Perhaps next season's auction can focus on a bit of stardust or big game experience -- it was in the clutch moments in the final that Puneri Paltan came up short.
Dabang Delhi: A+
Post-auction, the worry was that Delhi were a team that was too old. Yes, 23-year-old Ashu Malik was going lead the raiding unit, but a defence that was reliant on the legs of 33-year-old Fazel Atrachali and 35-year-old Surjeet might not have gone the distance. Well, all the naysayers served as motivation, and Joginder Narwal fashioned a champion outfit that went on to win the competition.
DABANG DELHI ARE PKL CHAMPIONS! ��
They become only the third team to win the PKL title more than once. pic.twitter.com/NVvGDWOjO0
- ESPN India (@ESPNIndia) October 31, 2025
For all the talk of Puneri Paltan being a team, Dabang Delhi's own brand of unity would often get ignored. Ashu Malik endured an injury-hit season, and his season points tally was the fewest since his rookie season (also coincidentally, when Delhi last won PKL). Yet, despite Ashu's troubles, Neeraj Narwal, Ajinkya Pawar and even Akshit Dhull backed him up brilliantly, all able to perform lead raiding duties with aplomb. Fazel, Surjeet, Sandeep and Saurabh Nandal formed a defence that was rarely breached and lead the league in tackle percentages (43.35%). However, it was Delhi's characteristic of coming up trumps when the pressure was on that finally told -- they scored the most points in Do-or-Die raids and came up with 20 Super Raids -- nine more than any other team. Ultimately, that clutch gene led them to the title.
Bengaluru Bulls: B+
The Bulls were quite the paradox this season -- a coach in BC Ramesh who outlined his focus on defence ahead of the season, then formed a team who could achieve blowout 30-point margin of victories, as the Bulls finished with a league-high score difference of 97. The numbers prove that this team was perhaps the third-best defensive outfit in the league, with Deepak Sankar and Yogesh Dahiya racking up top-10 tackling totals.
Alireza Mirzaian was a revelation as a raider, and perhaps the Bulls erred in relying on him too much, but 201 points over the course of the season was nothing to frown about. What did let the Bulls down were inexplicably limp performances in the playoffs, where they lost both the mini-qualifier and eliminator 2 to bow out of PKL. Given Ramesh's focus on youth, that was perhaps to be expected, but if they manage to retain this core over the coming years, there are the makings of a champion team.
Telugu Titans: A-
Bharat Hooda, please accept this writer's apology.
Post-auction, these very pages had been less than complimentary about Telugu Titans' acquisition, with allusions to Hooda being a has-been.
Hooda firmly threw those predictions in the bin, with a raiding season that saw the Titans comfortably into the playoffs and barring a late-game collapse against Puneri Paltan, also into the PKL final. Hooda's 22 points went in vain in that game, but as he reflects on a 247-point season, he can be satisfied that he's repaid all of the 81 lakhs spent on him. The Titans meanwhile, can look forward to tweaking the defence, which while fairly decent, could use some improvement. Get that mix right, and a similar season from Hooda could see the Titans celebrating something more than being five minutes from the PKL final.
Haryana Steelers: C
To go from champions to a distant fifth and an unceremonious play-in exit is not fitting for a Manpreet Singh team. The Steelers have constantly lost battles right from the auction -- letting Mohammad Reza Shadloui go, then losing the grudge match against Devank Dalal to losing winnable games all season -- such as the play-in loss to Jaipur Pink Panthers. It's not been a good show for an organisation that prides itself on winning.
This still was a Manpreet Singh team though, and they went high-risk on defence, averaging the most tackle points in the league and the most super tackles as a team. The Steelers were third-highest in the league for inflicting all-outs on the opposition, but themselves conceded the second-highest all-outs in the league. Jaideep Dahiya was the second-best defender in the league (68 points, most high-5s) and all of Shivam Patare and Vinay's raiding was not enough. The mix was simply missing the vice-like defence of last year, and for a Manpreet team that's not focused on high point scoring via raids, it spells doom.
U Mumba: B-
They did what they said on the tin. Cheap, young players purchased in the auction, and they fashioned that into a sixth-place finish, hoping for a shock playoff run. The moneyball-esque strategy didn't pay off as a teary-eyed Ajit Chouhan stood despondent in the final moments of the play-in loss to Patna Pirates.
The U Mumba captain may perhaps be tired of his franchise's frugal nature, betting the stars on youth, but he tried gamely this season nonetheless, injuries and all. It wasn't the best season for U Mumba, nor was it the worst, but they may sink into the quicksand of mediocrity if they're not ambitious in next year's auction.
Patna Pirates: D
"Where is the best defender? Where is the best raider?", bellowed Fazel Atrachali after Delhi's PKL win. They were both at Patna Pirates. That factoid is revelatory enough for a team that finished seventh, but then somehow managed to go all the way to Eliminator 3 in the playoffs.
In Ayan Lohchab and Navdeep, the Pirates had the league's best raider (324 pts) and best defender (73 pts). You would expect that would spur a team on to the title, but the Pirates had little else apart from that 1-2 punch. Games involving them were chaotic, as the Pirates scored the most points in the league but also conceded the most points in the league. That affinity to chaos saw them pull off three surprise wins over U Mumba, Jaipur Pink Panthers and Bengaluru Bulls in the playoffs, before they fell to Telugu Titans. There are the makings of an exciting team here, should they get things right at the next auction. Ankit Jaglan, with 51 points this season, did not reflect great value, considering the 1.5 crore + they paid for him.
Jaipur Pink Panthers: C-
The dependance on Iranians Ali Samadi and Reza Mirbagheri didn't particularly pay off, with the Pink Panthers the only team with a negative score difference to make it into the playoffs. They managed a shock win over Haryana Steelers in the play-in, but normal service resumed in Eliminator 1, where they lost to the Patna Pirates.
In truth, the Pink Panthers had written off this season even before they hit the mat -- not replacing Arjun Deshwal and Ankush Rathee in the auction effectively hamstrung them, despite the best efforts of Nitin Dhankar. A revamp is needed.
UP Yoddhas: C-
Teams that have spent big on Guman Singh have spent the season regretting the purchase, with finishes of 10th (U Mumba) and 11th (Gujarat Giants) over the last two seasons. The UP Yoddhas finished ninth this year. Yes, they narrowly missed out on the playoffs, but Guman Singh's 88 points were never going to be enough, nor the 79 of Bhavani Rajput.
The core of this team had finished third last year, and the Yoddhas did retain them, but in tweaking their team to accommodate their 1+ crore purchase, they did more harm than good. There are better stars to bet the farm on.
Tamil Thalaivas: F
Where do we even begin?
This wasn't a PKL franchise, the Thalaivas were writing the next Kollywood drama. Right from sacking captain Pawan Sehrawat mid-season with allegations of ill-discipline, to both Arjun Deshwal and coach Sanjeev Baliyan alluding to management interference, the season was a mess, and then some.
How Deshwal managed 209 points and how Nitesh Kumar managed 65 tackle points is anyone's guess, because all the off-mat turmoil meant that they ought to have been much, much worse on it.
Gujarat Giants: D-
"Which team has Shadloui, that team is champion." A statement that held true for the last two seasons wilted into utter falsehood in PKL 12 as the Giants finished second-from-bottom. The Giants finished eleventh in PKL 11, spent a record 2.23 Cr on Shadloui to finish... eleventh in PKL 12.
While the Iranian is a maverick, he's the cherry on top of the icing, not the whole entire cake as the Giants wanted him to be. Tasked with heralding some unknown names into a champion team, Shadloui cut a frustrated and sorry figure all season, as his 65 points showed -- his worst-ever return in five seasons of PKL. Where the Giants go from here is anyone's guess, because the Iranian clearly was not the answer.
Bengal Warriorz: F
It's revealing that the two biggest purchases of the PKL auction led teams that finished at the bottom. Yet, Devank Dalal was hardly the disappointment that Shadloui was. If anything, he made the case for being the league's best raider again, and with an average of 16.94 points per game, he was statistically the best.
Where the Warriorz failed was in backing up Devank with a defence worthy of his raiding skills. Ashish Malik is the only Warriorz defender in the top 35 tackle points in the league, which reveals all you need to know. The Warriorz topped multiple raiding stats this season, and it was all down to Devank that they even stood a chance of qualifying for the playoffs with a couple of games to go. The management decision to drop him for the final two games was inexplicable, and predictably they came last. Devank's mustache was deservedly twirled this season, but sadly the Warriorz ensured he was only twirling air.