Pro Kabaddi League season 9 Team Profile: Bengaluru Bulls

The defense of the team is looking very strong this time.

The Bengaluru Bulls have won the title once in the Pro Kabaddi League (PKL). They won the title in the sixth season. Since then the team's performance has been good but they could not reach the final. Bengaluru Bulls are busy in their preparations for the upcoming PKL season. Under the leadership of coach Randhir Singh, all the players are sweating it out in the training camp.

The team was at number one in terms of the highest raid points last season. The Bulls scored 534 raid points in 24 matches. For the team, Pawan Sehrawat was the top raider with 304 raid points and Bharat was second with 115 raid points. Although this time Pawan Sehrawat is not in the team, it will be interesting to see the franchise perform without him. Vikash Kandola has taken the place of Pawan and the team will hope that he has the winning formula. 

Strength of Bengaluru Bulls

Defense is the biggest strength of Bengaluru Bulls

The biggest strength in the 9th season for the Bulls is their defense. The team had retained all its key defenders for the 9th season ahead of the auction. Defenders like Mahendra Singh, Mayur Jagannath Kadam, Saurabh Nandal, and Aman will be part of the team this time too. Saurabh Nandal's performance last season was tremendous. Last season, he was third in terms of highest tackle points. He had scored 63 tackle points in total.

Apart from this, another defender of the team, Aman also performed well and got 51 points in 23 matches. Mahendra Singh also scored 31 points in 20 matches. Overall, the trio of Saurabh Nandal, Aman and Mahendra Singh can be a strong link for Bengaluru Bulls this time too and the team will have high hopes from them. 

Bengaluru Bulls' Weak Side

Pawan Sehrawat's absence in the team

For Bengaluru Bulls, their biggest strength till now was Pawan Sehrawat. He is such a raider who single-handedly used to win matches for the team. However, this season he will not be seen in the jersey of the Bulls and this is a big setback for the team. Pawan Sehrawat had scored the highest raid points in the league last season. Apart from this, in the seventh season too, he achieved 360 points in 24 matches and in the sixth season he made the team champion by getting 282 points. The credit for winning the title in the 6th season goes to him only. In such a situation, the raiding of the Bulls has become very weak due to the absence of Pawan Sehrawat in the team.

As a substitute for Pawan Sehrawat, Bengaluru has included Vikash Kandola this time but it will not be easy for him to fill Pawan's void. If we talk about the performance of Vikash Kandola, he achieved 174 raid points in 22 matches last season which included eight Super raids and four Super-10s. Now due to the absence of Pawan, a lot of responsibility has come on him in raiding. 

Over dependence on Vikas Kandola in raiding 

The team has a support raider in the form of Bharat but it remains to be seen what happens if Vikas Kandola flops in a few matches, then the question would be can he handle the raiding on his own? This will be the biggest question before the coach. GB More is also a good raider but it remains to be seen how much he can assist Vikash. The team lacks bench strength in the raiding department. 

Players to watch out for 

The team has many such players from whom their fans will have high hopes. There are Vikash Kandola and Bharat in raiding from whom good performances can be expected. On the other hand, Saurabh Nandal, Aman and Mahendra Singh will have a lot of pressure in defense. If these players perform to their potential then once again the Bulls can give a tough challenge to the rest of the teams in the title race.