Dabang Delhi Pro Kabaddi Season 7 Team Analysis

The Pro Kabaddi Auction ahead of Season 7 was a highly anticipated affair with several teams looking to put together the remaining pieces of the jigsaw puzzle but also others looking to hit the reset button as they move forward with a completely new unit filled with new personnel. The auction wasn’t short of the star quotient either, with the likes of Monu Goyat, Rahul Chaudhari, Abozar Mighani, Sandeep Narwal, Nitin Tomar, Rishank Devadiga and Siddharth Desai all up for grabs!

There are positives and negatives when it comes to re-booting a side completely in an auction that has 12 teams vying for top players. On one hand, the purse available is significantly larger (teams like Puneri Paltan, Telugu Titans & UP Yodha had this luxury) than several other sides that have retained their core and that gives the team owners the ability to bully the auction a little and raise the price of players which competing owners definitely want back in their squads. On the other hand however, with 11 other teams vying for each player, the chances of putting together a balanced side from scratch become harder than when it was in an 8-team league and each team’s strategy tables have gotten smarter too with every passing auction.

Time to jump straight into our analysis of each team ahead of this Pro Kabaddi Season 7 and give you a detailed breakdown of the side with the strengths and potential gaps, which need to be addressed before July arrives. We at Kabaddi Adda have decided to detail each squad with a SWOT Analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities & Threats) to understand where they currently stand but also to give all Kabaddi fans an idea of where these teams could find room to improve as the season kicks off…and we certainly expect a few surprises too!

Dabang Delhi enter the upcoming season with renewed vigour following their best ever showing in the franchise’s PKL history, finishing 3rd in Zone A and earning themselves a playoff qualification for the first time. They say, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, and that’s precisely the mantra that Delhi followed at the PKL 7 Auction, retaining most of their core members in the form of Meraj Sheykh, Joginder Narwal, young sensation Naveen Kumar and also bringing back Chandran Ranjit, Vishal Mane and Ravinder “The Hawk” Pahal. What’s more is that they’ve added Anil Kumar as a left cover to allow Vishal Mane to play in his preferred right cover position and also picked up all-rounder Vijay (former Patna Pirate), right-corner Sombhir (who could play cover too) and Iran’s Saeed Ghaffari to further bolster the squad. It’s a side that gelled well together and could get even better with the minor alterations to the setup. Meraj Sheykh is getting older and the raiding responsibilities might need to lie with Ranjit & Naveen as primary raiders, who are certainly more than capable to handle the load especially with the corner combo of Jogi + Ravinder leading the defense.
 

Meraj Sheykh is getting older and the raiding responsibilities might need to lie with Ranjit & Naveen as primary raiders

The team oozes quiet confidence and with good reason. Following a successful campaign, the side needs to continue to keep playing aggressive, high point scoring Kabaddi. They have the squad depth and also possess young individual talent to be one of the leading sides in the competition in PKL 7.

The only concern will be load management of players like Joginder (for whom there is NO replacement available in the squad) and Chandran Ranjit who has been struggling with a shoulder dislocation and so squad / player rotation becomes critical over the 22 match long season ahead. Naveen Kumar with a season under his belt could be the man to watch and the combination with Chandran Ranjit (if fully fit) could be lethal with Meraj pouncing in between with his bursts as well.

The side has plenty of leadership on court and that is a huge advantage, especially if the captain is ushered onto the bench, to keep the squad settled on court through the 40 minutes. Expect big things from this squad if they play to potential and keep it simple!