Mumbai, Aug 28 (IANS): As part of their promise of finding and nurturing young talent, former champions U Mumba have announced the signing of four exciting young players for the 10th edition of Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) which is scheduled to start on December 2.

The four players -- Sombir Goswami, Mukilan Shanmugam, Gokulakannan M and Bittu Banwala -- have been selected to play for U Mumba out of the hundreds of players that attended the trials in Mumbai.

All four players could fit into the starting squad of many PKL teams with their immense potential and will be seen in action in different positions for U Mumba, the team informed in a release on Monday.

Sombir Goswami (left corner), Mukilan Shanmugam (left cover), Gokulakannan M (right cover) and Bittu Banwala (right corner) will only add to the existing defensive strength of the side.

The NYP selections took place in the presence of the coaches Gholamreza Mazandarani, KC Suthar, and Jeeva Kumar. Besides the coaches, U Mumba’s Chief Executive Officer Suhail Chandhok was also involved in NYP selections, carefully observing the performance of each candidate in the NYP selection camp.

"It’s amazing to see such a large young talent pool with the likes of the Yuva Kabaddi Series providing a constant supply of high-quality, PKL-ready players from across the country," he said.

"It’s a pity we could only select four out of the hundreds who turned up for the trials, but I am happy that we could find players as per our requirements that could be good enough to fit a starting 7 of a Pro Kabaddi team. Our coaches are focused on building an unbreakable defence, and hence I am happy that we managed to get four highly talented young defenders,” commented Chandhok on the four NYP acquisitions.

U Mumba have already retained five players -- Surinder Singh, Jai Bhagwan, Rinku Sharma, Haider Ali Ekrami and Shivam Thakur for the upcoming season.