The fifth season of the Pro Kabaddi League is all set to get underway on July 28 and will be bigger and better than ever, featuring 12 teams, divided into two zones and 132 league matches. As a result, the format of the league has undergone a sea change and will not follow the traditional format of the last four seasons.
In the previous editions, the traditional system, that featured eight teams, had a round-robin format with all teams featuring each other twice and the top four going into the knockout stage. The first edition was won by the Jaipur Pink Panthers, the second by U Mumba and the next two by the Patna Pirates.
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New format
However, this season will be totally different. The challenge for the organizers has been that fans should find ‘high stake’ & ‘high sentiment’ matches for their respective teams all through the longer season. For this, they have come up with innovative solutions which include division of teams in two zones to invoke differentiated rivalries within Pro Kabaddi, even distribution of strong kabaddi markets across the two zones, all teams playing each other & all teams play at every Venue & an equal number of matches.
Another concern would have been that the longer season must not become simplistic & monotonous for which they have introduced differentiated stages to the league such as Inter-zonal Weeks and Wild Card matches’ Week. With 12 teams, it is also important to make sure that the lower ranked teams must stay engaged till the end, for which there will be innovative & longer playoffs comprising of six teams.
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Zones
The teams have been divided into zones keeping in mind even distribution of kabaddi markets, geographical proximity for teams in either zone and potential play for special rivalries within and across the two zones. The two zones are as follows:
| Zone A | Zone B |
|---|---|
| Delhi | Chennai |
| Haryana | Hyderabad |
| Jaipur | Bengaluru |
| Ahmedabad | Patna |
| Pune | Kolkata |
| Mumbai | Lucknow |
Tournament overview
The league stage will consist of a whopping 132 matches, which will start on July 28 and end October 20. Each team will play 22 matches in this phase, 15 of them intra-zone and seven inter-zone. Each venue will have 11 matches and for every team, there will be a total of six home matches.
The Playoffs will have six matches and will run from October 22-28. It will feature the top 3 teams from each zone, thus rewarding consistent performance.
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League phase
In the intra-zone phase, each team will face the other teams from the zone thrice, which means a total of 15 matches for each.
The inter-zone phase is quite interesting and will last three weeks. It will see all teams face all six teams in the other zone once. In the penultimate week, there will be wild-card matches which will be inter-zone and will be decided by a mid-season draw.
Playoffs format
This is how the playoff week will work:
