PKL 2019 | Pawan Sehrawat is going to get different role this season, claims Randhir Singh
Randhir Singh has revealed that Pawan Sehrawat will be seen in a different role in the Bengaluru Bulls camp in the seventh edition of the PKL. The Bulls chief coach has expressed his happiness over coming back to the home venue after a gap of two years and threw some light on the preparations.
If you try to name the find of the season from the sixth edition of the Pro Kabaddi League, then the first name that comes to mind is that of Pawan Sehrawat. Although he had played in the league before, he came to limelight in the first game of the season for the Bulls when he was asked to raid ahead of skipper Rohit Kumar and he created magic by returning with 20 raid points against Tamil Thalaivas. He was the Best Raider of the tournament with a total of 271 raid points and had 11 tackle points as well.
Meanwhile, the chief coach of the Bulls Randhir Singh has stated that Pawan will be in a completely different role of a proper all-rounder in the side in the seventh edition of the tournament. Pawan had earlier started his career as a left-side defender but made a name for himself as a raider last year.
“He (Pawan) is going to get a completely new role this time. He is going to be our all-rounder. Let me remind you, all the superstars and heroes that you are seeing now are the finds of Bengaluru Bulls, be it Pardeep Narwal or Pawan Sehrawat,” Randhir told SportsCafe.
“We have another player named Sumit Malik, who played a few games for us in the 2018 season and I think he is going to perform well for us this year. Otherwise, we have the Pawan-Rohit duo and I think they are making even better progress which makes our offense a formidable one.”
Defending champions Bengaluru Bulls have been playing away from their home for last two seasons because of the failure of getting chance to organise games at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium in the Garden City. The home leg for the Bulls was played at Balewadi, Pune last year. However, the team is expected to get back their home venue in Karnataka’s capital back and Randhir said that the players will be happy to play in front of the home crowd this season.
© PKL“We have retained around 90% of the previous year’s squad. As we are the defending champions, so we have decided not to tinker with our first 7. The good part this year is that we have got our home ground back. The previous year, our players had to travel a lot because we didn’t have one at that time. Also, if we had our home ground, then the triumph would have been more fruitful. Although we won the competition but we couldn’t enjoy the moment to the fullest as we couldn’t play in front of our own fans. We have been practising really well and I hope our team perform well this time,” the coach explained.
“We know the fans have missed our presence for two years. But honestly speaking, the players have missed the fans too! Somewhere in our heart, there is a 10 per cent feeling of disappointment for not being able to get accolades in front of the home crowd for winning the trophy. So, having our home ground back is a good feeling for us. That’s why the players are so happy.”
When asked about the pressure that he expects to be on the team during the matches this year, the title-winning coach said, “Pressure is always there. Last year all the experts thought us to be the 11th team in the competition and that 11th team ended up becoming champions. So, this year the experts will definitely put pressure by tagging us the “defending champions”.”
With Rohit and Pawan in the raiding unit, the focus for the team at the auctions was their defence. As Randhir said earlier that he retained most of the players, Raju Lal Chowdhury is most-likely to start for them at the right corner of the defence but they also have young players Vijay Kumar and Saurabh.
“Last year, one of our weaknesses was the right corner position. This year we have roped in three players for that position. One of them is Army’s Vijay, the other two are Sourav and Raju. So, we tried to fill in the loopholes of the previous season. Vijay Kumar is a national player from the Army. Best player from All India University team in NYP. Vijay will be tested in case there is an issue with the right corner,” said the experienced coach who has been with the Bulls from the first season.
The Bulls have started practising for the upcoming edition of the league and they are currently in a camp in Chennai. Revealing that the side is yet to make an announcement on who is going to be their captain this year, Randhir said that he sees no reason to remove Rohit Kumar from captaincy.
“Maximum chances are there that he would be the captain. The biggest part is, before the last season he was never a good captain. I tried to put my entire focus on him to develop his leadership skills. Since we have got so much success with him being the captain, why would we remove him from that position?”
Ahead of the start of the season, the man at the helm of the affairs of the defending champs has an aim of taking one game at a time. He also praised the new format where there is no more the old zonal system in the league stage of the tournament and all the teams have to face each other twice before the playoffs.
“If you try to jump four steps at a time you might break your legs. So, I believe in going step by step. Our primary target is to qualify, then comes the semis. Our third objective is to play the final and lastly to lift the trophy.
“The players will get more rest because of this format. If you have noticed most of the top raiders were in the Pool B last time be it Rahul Chowdhuri, Ajay Thakur or Shrikant Jadhav. So, this anomaly has come to an end. Previously we had to play six home matches now we have to play only four. There will not be much physical pressure on the players this time,” Randhir signed off.