The Players Auctions for the 2nd edition of RuPay Prime Volleyball League Powered by A23 were held for the very first time in Kolkata.

The Kolkata Thunderbolts auction table was manned by Shri Pawan Kumar Patodia (Chairman & Co-Owner), Vinay Kishan and Vineet Bhandari (Co-owners), Sumedh Patodia (Team Director), Mr. Narayan Alva (Head Coach) and Mr. Amrit Pal Singh (Assistant Coach) of the Kolkata Thunderbolts management, along with retained players – captain of the squad Ashwal Rai and the MVP of season 1, Vinit Kumar.

Mr. Amit Desai from Surat-based Charu Jewels flew in specially for the event and serenaded the entire last year’s Kolkata Thunderbolts squad with a Championship Ring before the auction.

The other franchise owners also present at the auction include Mr. Thomas Muthoot from the Muthoot Fincorp Group, Mr. Ankit Nagori from Curefoods, Mr. Safeer Beacon from Beacon Infotech, and Mr. Sameer Nigam and Mr. Rahul Chari from PhonePe. The auction was conducted by Manish Batavia under the league CEO and sports industry veteran Joy Bhattacharjya acting as the overseer.

With the players signing two-year contracts with their respective franchises, the league going international starting this year thanks to their partnership with Volleyball World, and the addition of the eighth franchise, the Player Auctions for the league’s second season were an even more exciting event. The attendees participated in a bid for the top international volleyball stars as well as a bid for the best Indian volleyball players to play in the next action-packed season in February.

Kolkata Thunderbolts picked up USA’s Cody Caldwell (Attacker) and Venezuela’s Jose Verdi (Middle Blocker) from the international players’ pool. The franchise bought back Rahul K (Attacker) for Rs 7 Lakhs and then bought Hariharan V (Setter) for Rs 3.30 lakhs.

Retained: Ashwal Rai (Attacker); Vinit Kumar (Universal) Janshad U (Setter)

Players bought at auction: Cody Caldwell (Attacker), Jose Verdi (Middle Blocker), Rahul K (Attacker), Hariharan V (Setter)

The highest bid went to 17.5 lakhs for Rohit Kumar by Kochi Blue Spikers.

Pawan Patodia urged the media to spread the news about the game of volleyball and he hoped that this game will be as popular as cricket or football in the coming times.

Priyanka Dutta