Patna Pirates threw in a googly this auction by not retaining PKL's highest-scoring raider and their captain Pardeep Narwal. Pardeep Narwal has been a big driver in Pirate's hattrick PKL victories across seasons 3-5. However, in the last two seasons, Patna Pirates failed to qualify for the playoffs. These poor results are in spite of a brilliant showing by Pardeep Narwal who scored 233 and 304 points in Seasons 6 and 7. The poor performance by the team can be attributed to over-dependence on Pardeep; he went for a whopping 48% of raids by Patna Pirates. 

READ MORE : Pardeep Narwal's performance in Senior Nationals | Why Patna Pirate fails to qualify inspite of Pardeep's performance?

Pardeep Narwal was the Most Valuable Player for seasons PKL4 and PKL5. He continued his unbelievable streak in PKL6 and there was no stopping him in PKL7. There are two possibilities - one, team Patna Pirates not retaining Pardeep Narwal; two and more likely, Pardeep refused to sign with Patna Pirates. It is however still possible that Pardeep will be retained by Patna Pirates in the auction using the FBM (Final Bid Match) option. And no prizes for guessing who will be the most expensive player in PKL8 auctions!

Patna Pirates retained right corner Neeraj Kumar (59 Tackle Points in PKL7) and all-rounder Monu. Neeraj plays for Services and Monu is a part of Railways.