Pro Kabaddi League Season 9 Team Profile: Patna Pirates

The franchise is the most successful in the history of the league so far.

Patna Pirates have undergone major changes in terms of playing and coaching personnel ahead of the Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) Season 9. They finished as the runners-up of Season 8. The most successful franchise in the history of the Pro Kabaddi League has new dawn upon itself. The Pirates have parted ways with Coach Ram Mehar Singh after achieving success over the long term.

Ravi Shetty – Assistant Coach of the Puneri Paltan in Season 8 – is the newly appointed Head Coach of the Patna Pirates. Ravi Shetty has a wealth of coaching experience in the sport. He has also been the Head Coach of U Mumba in the past. He guided the franchise to glory in Season 2. The PKL-winning head coach seems to be determined to bring the glory days back to the Patna Pirates.

In this article, we take a sneak peek into the squad of the Patna Pirates listing down their strengths and weaknesses. We will also be suggesting some names that the fans should look out for, every time the pirates take on the Kabaddi Mat.

Strengths of the Patna Pirates

An ace of a defense unit, all retained

Last season, the Patna Pirates led the charts for all kinds of defensive numbers. They finished top of the group table at the end of the group stage and qualified for the knockout stages after a two-year break. They were the most dominant side in the league last season. A lot of the credit goes down to the solidity of the defense unit.

The good news for the Pirates fans is that all of the defense core from last season will play for their team in the upcoming season. The management decided to retain Sajin, Neeraj Kumar, and MR Chiyaneh ahead of the Season 9 Auction. They have gone on to buyback Sunil from the auction for a sum of 21.5 Lac. They are nailed-on starters for the team.

We should not forget that Chiyaneh has had a highly successful debut season in the Pro Kabaddi League. The defender would be hoping to continue from where he left off last season.

The essence of success in Kabaddi is chemistry between the players. Having played together for one season already, the defenders of the Pirates will have no problems gelling together. Let alone the fact that they had superb chemistry in the last season as well.

Moreover, Rohit Gulia and Sachin are handy defenders during crunch moments. Defending is always a team effort, and Patna Pirates has several team players at its disposal in season 9.

Weaknesses of the team

Lack of depth in the raiding unit

Raid department is that one area where Patna Pirates lack the luster when compared to last season. The Pirates' raiders portrayed some scintillating performances throughout the season 8. They had Prashant Kumar Rai, Monu Goyat, and Sachin Tanwar in their ranks. Out of that trio, the Pirates only managed to keep hold of their star youngster Sachin for season 9. They exercised the RTM Card on Sachin for the Final Auction price of 81 Lac.

Experience in the raiding unit is as vital as young and fresh blood. The experience gets the team out of crunch situations, more often than not. For season 9, the Pirates only have the duo of Rohit Gulia and Sachin Tanwar to bail themselves out. The rest of the raiders in the squad lack adequate PKL experience. To expose a young lion on a hunt without any armor is always risky, isn’t it!

Sachin has been influential for his teams since his PKL debut, while Rohit’s transfer to Haryana was one of those big money moves gone wrong. The duo would hope to build on a partnership, like the one they had back in the day while playing for the Gujarat Giants.

Monu Sandhu will have to bring himself to the big stage this time, after spending two seasons with the Pirates. It is his time to shine as a support raider.

Apart from these names, the raiding unit of the Pirates consists of players from the NYP Category – Anuj Tanwar, Ranjit Naik, Rohit Narwal.

(Right to Match – RTM is an option for any team to buy back the player they were not able to retain ahead of the auction by matching the highest bid for the player at the auction table.)

Players to watch out for

Head Coach Ravi Shetty has coached “Yuva Paltan” – the “Juniors” wing of the Puneri Paltan franchise in the past. Moreover, we have seen the likes of Aslam Inamdar, and Mohit Goyat comes out with flying colors for the Puneri Paltan in the last edition of the PKL. Shetty was the assistant coach of that squad.

Youngsters like Sachin, Rohit, and Chiyaneh would be licking their hands on the appointment of Shri Ravi Shetty. Anuj Tanwar can be the one youngster to look out for. He could have a breakthrough season. He won the Bronze Medal with Haryana at the recently-concluded Senior National Games.