When the caravan of Pro Kabaddi was kick-started, the Pink Panthers from the land of Rajasthan were the first ones to get their hands on the prestigious PKL trophy. However, the Pink City Jaipur has been deprived of the glory of the world’s grandest Kabaddi stage ever since then. Hence the ‘Parimatch News‘ brings an in-depth analysis of the Jaipur Pink Panthers squad for the Pro Kabaddi Season 9.
The inaugural champions finished their PKL 8 campaign in the eighth position after attaining only 63 points from 22 fixtures of the season. It was the fourth consecutive season where the Pink Panthers failed to advance through the league stages. In the previous season, they were up against Puneri Paltan in their final group game where a win could have got them to the playoffs however, Jaipur’s campaign was restricted to the league round after losing the battle by 37-30.
The Uttar Pradesh-based coaching duo of head coach Sanjeev Kumar Baliyan and assistant coach Upendra Kumar will be returning to take charge of Jaipur. Baliyan recently guided the Railways side to their fourth consecutive Senior Nationals title. On the other hand, Upendra along with his disciple Arjun Deshwal took the Army Red unit to the gold medal triumph of the 48th Inter-Services championship.
Squad
Raiders: Arjun Deshwal, V Ajith Kumar, Rahul Chaudhari, Bhavani Rajput, Nitin Panwar, Navneet Sehrawat, Devank Dalal
Defenders: Sunil Kumar Malik, Sahul Kumar, Nitin Chandel, Lucky Sharma, Deepak Rathee, Reza Mirbagheri, Abhishek KS, Woosan Ko, Ankush Rathee, Ashish Bajar
All-rounders: Rahul Dhanawade
Raid Department
A golden touch from Jaipur’s golden boy
Arjun Deshwal moved to Jaipur from U Mumba along with his godfather figure coach Sanjeev Kumar Baliyan in the previous season at an auction price of 96 Lakh. In his very first season with Pink Panthers, the Services lad emerged as their leading performer in Season 8 by scoring a whopping total of 267 raid points in 22 appearances and went on to finish second in the individual raid points charts of the season. Hence the team management had no second thoughts when they decided to retain at a higher price (1.05 Crore) than the previous one.
Arjun will be accompanied by another young raider who used to don the Orange and Black colours of U Mumba before being picked by the Jaipur franchise. The Tamilian vigilante V Ajith Kumar who was the second highest raid points scorer for the Maharashtrian outfit in the previous PKL campaign has been recruited by the inaugural champions for 66 Lakhs. Ajith played the role of support raider to Abhishek Singh at U Mumba and can be seen in the same role at Jaipur as well.
The Showman Rahul Chaudhari has arrived at the Pink Panthers camp to participate in the ninth consecutive Pro Kabaddi edition. Jaipur will be the fourth destination of the 2016 World Cup winner who has 973 PKL career raid points under his helm. Madhya Pradesh skipper Bhavani Rajput is also going to be part of this phenomenal raiding unit in the forthcoming season.
Defense Department
The deadlock of Sahul Kumar never fails
Jaipur had a star-studded defense department in the previous roster featuring the likes of Sandeep Dhull, Dharmaraj Cheralathan, Amit Hooda, Nitin Rawal and Vishal Lather. However, the defensive unit of Pink Panther failed to live up to the expectations and fetched the fifth lowest tackle points among all participating teams. Hence the decision of the authorities not to retain any of the above names did not come as a surprising one.
The UP-based right-corner defender Sahul Kumar along with Arjun Deshwal are the only two players from the ERP category whom the team management considered worthy for retention. Ever since his breakout to the national level, Sahul has been unstoppable and also outclassed the veteran Amit Hooda in the previous season.
However, the left side of the corner can be a major weak link in the defense as both premier options Ashish Bajar and Ankush Rathee are going to be part of this grandest stage for the first time.
The former Gujarat Giants skipper Sunil Kumar’s stint at the Ahmedabad-based franchise comes to an end after a five-year-long association. The right-cover defender is Gujarat’s second-highest scoring defender of all time and is also considered one of the bests in the world for that position. The arrival of Sunil means the local lad Deepak Rathee who has been retained under the NYP won’t be the first-choice right-cover option anymore.
Foreign Knights
The two Iranian raiders, Amirhossein Maleki and Mohammad Amir Nosrati were recruited by the Rajasthan-based franchise previously. However, both of them have been replaced by new faces as Jaipur opted for defensive names in the foreign department. Maleki’s departure was a surprising one as he got only one game in the previous season in which he went on to score five raid points at a strike rate of 100%.
Reza Mirbagheri is another Persian defender who was part of Iran’s historic gold medal triumph in the 2019 Junior Kabaddi World Cup at Kish Island. In that tournament, Reza formed a formidable combination with other defensive mates Mohammadreza Shadloui and Amirhossein Bastami who are now part of the PKL roster. Mirbagheri is a sturdy left-cover defender who is widely known for his deadly dashes whenever an opposition raider enters his territory.
Both foreign Knights of Jaipur’s current roster primarily play in the same position. The South Korean defender Woosan Ko will be giving tough competition to Reza Mirbagheri in order to earn the first-choice status for the left-cover position. Ko is a promising South Korean name who will be touring India to take part in the World’s biggest Kabaddi for the first time.
NYP Trump Cards
Deepak Rathee is the only player from the NYP batch of the previous season who the Jaipur Pink Panthers management decided to retain for yet another campaign. The right-cover defender is also one of the only three players whom the franchise entrusted for Season 9 before the auction round. Deepak scored 16 tackle points from 14 appearances in his debut Pro Kabaddi campaign and earned the faith of the head coach.
Ankush Rathee, Devank Dalal, Ashish Bajar and Abhishek Gowda are the newest additions to the NYP quota of the Pink Panthers roster. Left corner defender Ankush is expected to feature in the Starting Seven as the first-choice option for the left-corner position. The Haryana-based youngster was under the radar of Jaipur scouts for a long time and especially when he won the prestigious All India Kabaddi Championship with the ONGC department.
Ankush will be accompanied by another left-corner defender named Ashish Bajar who recently won the Inter-Services tournament with the Army Red side. Meanwhile, the Karnataka youngster Abhishek Gowda can also be a very good choice for the left-cover position in the first team. Abhishek was nurtured by Ravi Shetty at Yuva Paltan along with other Kannadigas like Vishwas S, Bharath Gowda, Ratan Naik etc and also won the Maharashtra state championship defeating the star-studded BPCL.
Strongest Starting Seven
Arjun Deshwal (Raider), Rahul Chaudhari (Raider), V Ajith Kumar (Raider), Deepak Rathee (Left Cover), Sunil Kumar (Right Cover), Ankush Rathee (Left Corner), Sahul Kumar (Right Corner)