PKL 11 Season Review: Did Randhir Singh fail to buy right players for Bengaluru Bulls at auction?

The season 6 champions lacked consistency and coordination throughout the season.

PKL 6 champions Bengaluru Bulls had their worst season in Pro Kabaddi League history. Although they stocked their team with big raiding names in this year’s auction, they failed them badly. Whether it was their most expensive buy, Ajinkya Pawar, or the most successful raider in the PKL’s history, Pardeep Narwal, both had a disastrous season, which led to the Bulls’ downfall in the PKL 11.

Bengaluru Bulls ended up at the bottom of the table with just 2 wins out of 22 matches. They lost 19 matches whereas 1 match ended up in a draw. Pradeep Narwal-led Bulls have not won any of their last 15 encounters.

Also Read: PKL 11 Season Review: Did overspending on Sachin Tanwar cost Tamil Thalaivas their season?

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They have faced some massive losses, the biggest being (56-18) against Puneri Paltan and finished the season with a gigantic negative score difference of 227. However, the poor result cannot be pinned on any single entity, this season was a combined failure as a team where none other than Nitin Rawal was able to shine.

On that note, let’s have a look at how the season unfolded for the PKL 6 champions.

Top Performer

Nitin Rawal

Nitin Rawal is indisputably the best performer for the Bengaluru Bulls this season. Not just for the Bulls, but he was also one of the best defenders to feature this season. Rawal scored 76 points this season, out of which 74 were tackle points. Moreover, he hit 5 High-5s and had a 52% success tackle rate. He will be someone to hold on to for the Bulls for the upcoming seasons.

Unfortunately for the Bulls, Rawal was the only player to leave any impact on the opponents this season. Other than him, all the big and young players didn’t find their rhythm throughout the season and the result can be seen on the points table.

Below-Par Performers

Ajinkya Pawar

Bengaluru Bulls invested a big part of their purse to buy Ajinkya Pawar. However, Pawar had a terrible season, to say the least. He finished this season with only 62 raid points in 17 matches with no Super-10 whatsoever. He failed to bring any balance to the side and failed to live up to his name this year.

Pardeep Narwal

Pardeep Narwal was the biggest name in the Bulls’ attack. He was also included in the squad with higher hopes and leadership qualities. However, both did not turn out in their favour. Narwal crossed 1800 raid points in his PKL career this season and became the first player to do so.

However, this season, he managed to score just 111 raid points and surprisingly it is the highest raid points earned by any Bengaluru Bulls’ raider this season. It will be interesting to see what the future holds for this legend.

Also Read: PKL 11 Season Review: Why did Puneri Paltan fail to defend their title?

Saurabh Nandal

Saurabh Nandal was another big name in the Bulls’ squad. He has been with Bulls for a long time now, but this turned out to be his worst season as well. Nandal was not able to support Nitin Rawal to his best capabilities. He finished with 35 tackle points under his belt and was quite below par his stature.

The Bulls’ management will have to make some big and important decisions before the next season. They have to decide what kind of changes they want to make and what will be the brand of game they seek to play next season that can change their momentum.

Biggest losses this season:

Puneri Paltan 56-18 Bengaluru Bulls

Patna Pirates 54-29 Bengaluru Bulls

Patna Pirates 54-31 Bengaluru Bulls

Coach’s Report Card – Randhir Singh

Coach Randhir Singh has been an integral part of the Bulls franchise since season 1. He has given some tremendous results in the past, including the victorious season 6. However, this will be a season that he wants to vanish from his records.

He looked helpless, the way players performed in the middle and he was pretty vocal about his feelings in the post-match conferences, pointing out that the coach cannot help if the losing margins are massive. He was certainly not happy with what he saw, and it will be interesting to see how he changes things around in the next season if he remains in that position.

Lessons to be learned

There were minimal positives to take from this season for the Bengaluru Bulls. Other than Nitin Rawal, Sushil was the only raider who did decently in bits and pieces. Other than that, they have a lot of thinking to do. First of all, they would want to get some raiders whose current form is on the good side and pick a main raider who can consistently score Super-10s.

Another big mishap that happened to them was that no young raider turned out to be a game-changer like Devank for Patna Pirates, and Ajit Chouhan for U Mumba. For the Bulls, Pankaj, Jai Bhagwan, and Akshit, none of these raiders could show their best game, leading to the major collapse of their raiding unit.

The Bulls did an average job in the defence, where Nitin Rawal stole the show. Sunny, Arulnanthababu, Lucky Kumar, and Parteek were some other defenders who came in the supporting roles at times. However, the Bulls’ biggest problem has been the inconsistency.

Whether it was the raiders or defence, none of the players was able to score well continuously, rather they tanked their form with consistency. It will be something they must work on before PKL 12.

Fan’s View

Bengaluru Bulls‘ fans had the most horrifying season. They would have never imagined this kind of performance with Pardeep Narwal, Ajinkya Pawar, Saurabh Nandal, and Jai Bhagwan, in their team. However, they came out there for the support throughout the season and would hope for a stellar comeback in the next season.

The fans would want some strong decisions and changes made in the team for the next season that can lead to a better result.

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