Playoffs a birthright for U Mumba, asserts CEO Supratik Sen

The CEO of the franchise had interesting takes ahead of the new season.

U Mumba are a strong franchise in the Pro Kabaddi League. Despite finishing 10th last season, the outfit is stepping into the new season with vigour and confidence. Season 9 of the PKL is highly anticipated, especially after the conclusion of the mega auction in August. The Season 2 winners have a second title in their sights as the new campaign approaches.

CEO of U Mumba, Supratik Sen, was in conversation with Khel Now, talking about the auction, a young team for the new season and more. He was candid during the interaction and his stance towards rethinking the strategy to make the outfit competent again was very insightful. 

Here is what Sen had to say about the auction strategy, losing Fazal Atrachali, chasing Pawan Sehrawat and more ahead of Season 9 of the Pro Kabaddi League:

On Auction Strategy

Supratik Sen was quite straightforward in his assessment of the auctions. He said, “Fazal (Atrachali) was our captain for the last three seasons. He came to us when the sport was at a space where we were in Season 2 and he came to us as a young man. There could not be a bigger captain we could have had. What we got with Fazal was a lot of stability and a lot of direction as far as the team is concerned. But, when you stay three seasons, you go into the playoffs and you go all the way to the semis and then you come 10th, then it's time to rethink the plan and that is exactly what we did coming into the auction.

“We still wanted him and Abhishek and a few others but the truth of life is when you release, you are actually looking to re-look at things in a certain light and that is exactly what was pushed on to us,” he further said with a hope to see improvement in the new season.

Playoffs As Birthright

The failures of last season will act as a catalyst in making U Mumba great again. This is what Sen believes in this context when he said, “To the fans, we would say, there is a realization of life, whether you are Manchester United or Mumbai Indians or U Mumba - it is going to be the journey.

"When you turn 10th out of 12 teams, you have to re-look. We don’t like losing, Mumbai is a city and as people, there is no second place for us, we don’t like losing. Playoffs are something we consider a birthright.”

New Challenges

Supratik Sen also talked about the team and its composition for the upcoming season. He said, “So, we have landed with a new team, a new set of challenges and a new set of opportunities as well. We have a very well-engrained left-side right-side raiding team..

"U Mumba have a very good new squad as far as left corners are concerned. Sandeep is back with us, there is a challenge there. If he fires and Jeeva, who is one of our greatest corners, even he considers Sandeep to be a great one.”

Opportunity For young players

There are many young faces in the U Mumba lineup and the CEO hopes that the fans can give them time to show their talent. In this regard, he stated, “For our youth team, this could be an opportunity and the space where we improve.

"To the fans, we would request, give us a chance, give these young boys a chance. That’s the opportunity we will see in Season 9 and 10 - a historic tenth year for PKL and we want to be right there to write the story again.”

Missing out on Pawan Sehrawat

U Mumba chased Pawan Sehrawat in the auction but lost out to Tamil Thalaivas in the end. Speaking about the same, Sen noted, “We definitely wanted Pawan, we lost out on our captain, Abhishek was also gone. We thought we would come up with someone who is a match-winning player. He has the potential to take any match for a ten-point raid, 15-pointer or a 20-pointer. He has done the best, 36 points in one game. As a team you get close to 40-42 raids and then you go out and do this, that’s a player at a whole new level and that is what we went for as far as we could.”

“We thought 1.7 was big, 1.8 was big, and 2 was big. It went up to 2.5 and we were already breathing heavily because at that point you could either create a team or you could lose it completely. From there, all the best to Tamil, but for us, we had to build a team,” he concluded.