New Delhi, September 23: The Rohit Kumar-led defending champions Bengaluru Bulls has become the most popular team amongst the 12 franchises in the Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) with an average search volume of 84,357 in 2019 on various social media platforms. But when it came to players, Patna Pirates skipper Pardeep Narwal has been the most popular player for the second year in a row as his search volume was 37,292 last year and 30,814 so far in 2019. The study was conducted by SEMrush, an online content marketing platform.

Another interesting finding in the study is that the maximum search volume of the teams from the PKL in two years was 26,40,880 in July 2019. After Pardeep, the other two most popular players this year are Telugu Titans ace defender Vishal Bhardwaj and Bengaluru Bulls star raider Pawan Sehrawat. Bengaluru Bulls Team Squad in Pro Kabaddi League 2019: List of All Players and Schedule of Rohit Kumar-Captained Side In VIVO PKL 7.

The magic of this league was highly visible on Twitter as well. "Honoured to be a part of such a special evening," tweeted by India cricket skipper Virat Kohli is the most engaging tweet with 90,254 engagements and 86,108 favourites.

Speaking on the study, Fernando Angulo, Head of Communications, SEMrush commented: "Indians are now open heartedly accepting games like Kabaddi and it is visible in the results of this study. People in India are actively searching for teams and players in the Pro Kabaddi League. Apart from Google searches, the game is also popular amongst their tweets."

However, despite being the most searched franchise, the Bulls lie at the sixth place in the team standings with 50 points and are still to seal a berth for the play-offs for this year's edition of the league.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Sep 23, 2019 04:03 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).