PKL 12: U Mumba full squad list ft. Sunil Kumar

U Mumba’s potential starting 7 looks nearly identical to last year.

A team that set the league on fire early on but lost momentum thereafter, U Mumba finally qualified for the playoffs in the previous edition of the Pro Kabaddi League, for the first time since the seventh installment of the competition.

Their performance was full of ups and downs, but they eventually finished fifth in the league table with 71 points, having won 12, lost 8, and drawn two matches. However, the season-two champions were eliminated in the Eliminator of PKL 11, where they lost 23-31 against Patna Pirates.

With a rich legacy and a huge fan base, the team must be itching to lay their hands on the trophy again. They have decided to give most of their players from last time another chance, as seen from their retention and auction strategy.

The Mumbai-based franchise retained nine players, which include four Elite Retained Players (ERP), one Retained Young Player (RYP), and four Existing New Young Players (NYP). Going in with a purse of Rs. 2.31 Cr, they spent Rs. 2.215 Cr to buy nine players.

Their raiding department has an exciting look but lacks experience. Ajit Chouhan, who finished as the fourth-best raider in his debut season last time, will have to shoulder the most responsibility in PKL 12.

Iranian Amirmohammad Zafardanesh, who will be donning the U Mumba jersey for the third time running, is one of the quickest raiders currently but has been unable to translate potential into performance. Rohit Raghav, who was used as a ‘Super Sub’, will also have a bigger role in the upcoming season. Satish Kannan and Abhimanyu Raghuvanshi are the back-ups.

However, the story of the auction is that the management seems to have made a huge gamble, spending Rs. 78 lakhs on Aanil Mohan, who played for the Jaipur Pink Cubs in the Yuva Kabaddi Series and Rs. 49 lakhs on Sandeep Kumar, who has shown a lot of promise but not got enough opportunities for the Patna Pirates.

Their defense will be spearheaded by right cover Sunil Kumar, who is the most successful skipper in the league’s history. They used their Final Bid Match (FBM) cards to bring back the right corner Rinku and left cover Parvesh Bhainswal.

Both Rinku and Parvesh were not at their best in PKL 11, but they are experienced and have shown quality over the years. A relatively unknown face, Lokesh Ghosliya, is likely to man the left corner position. The likes of Shanmugam Mukilan, Mohammad Ghorbani, Deepak Kundu, and Sunny are set to be back-ups.

Interestingly, U Mumba had appointed Rakesh Kumar as their Head Coach, but bid farewell to him in a few months. The recently appointed new head coach, Anil Chaprana, will have a lot of work to do with a team that lacks star power on paper. However, what would give him a lot of optimism is that several underdogs have gone on to do very well in the history of the PKL.

On that note, let’s look at the full squad of U Mumba for PKL 12.

U Mumba squad for PKL 12:

Raiders: Ajit Chouhan, Sathish Kannan, Mukesh Kannan, Sandeep Kumar, Abhimanyu Raghuvanshi.

Defenders: Rinku, Sunil Kumar, Parvesh Bhainswal, Lokesh Ghosliya, Deepak Kundu, Shanmugam Mukilan, Sunny, Ravi.

All-rounders: Amirmohammad Zafardanesh, Rohit Raghav, Aanil Mohan, Mohammad Ghorbani, Amarjeet.

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