PKL 10 Auction: Siddharth Desai sold to Haryana Steelers for Rs 1 crore

The Bahubali nicknamed raider represented Telugu Titans last season.

Siddharth Desai was sold to Haryana Steelers for Rs 1 crore in the Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) 10 auction. After heavily bidding for Pawan Sehrawat, the Haryana Steelers settled for Siddharth Desai who has shown good form in PKL season 6 and 7 for U Mumba and Telugu Titans respectively.

The 31-year-old often called "Bahubali" plied his trade for Telugu Titans in the past three seasons - PKL 7, 8 and 9. However, he couldn't replicate the performance he put across in his maiden season for U Mumba due to recurring injuries. In the previous season, he scored 142 raid points and was inside the top 15 in the raiders' chart after a sub-par performance in season 8.

Siddharth Desai started his campaign for the southern franchise on a positive note scoring 217 raid points - most raid points in a single season for Telugu Titans in PKL 7. After a fruitful season with U Mumba, he was the costliest player in PKL 7 auction when Titans bid a whopping Rs 1.45 crore. His brother Suraj Desai joined Siddharth for a single season but did not achieve much success.

The lanky raider represented Air India and Maharashtra before making his PKL debut in PKL 6 with U Mumba. He enjoyed a successful debut season and became the fastest to reach 200 raid points after finishing with 218 raid points from 21 appearances.

Before reaching 200 raid points, Siddharth Desai was the fastest to 50 and 100 raid points with an incredible strike rate of 89.13 percentage in do-or-die raids. Overall, Siddharth Desai has amassed 620 points in the four seasons he has taken part so far in the PKL.