Bengal Warriors is one of the oldest franchises in the Pro Kabaddi League. The team was founded in 2014 and is the home team of Kolkata. The team's home ground is Netaji Indoor Stadium in Kolkata.
The Future Group is one of the biggest retail sectors in India. Their retail and fashion outlets include Big Bazaar, Planet Sports, and EasyDay amongst others. Future Group is one of the top sectors when it comes to market capitalisation. The company has more than 35000 employees and every single day, there are more than 40 million people who walk in the retail stores of Future Group. The company has been around since 1987 and was initially known for the outfits shop called Pantaloons.
The founder of the Future Group is Kishore Biyani. He is a sports enthusiast and has invested in several programmes to promote sports in the country. Bengal Warriors is one of his biggest investments.
However, in 2017, actor Akshay Kumar's Birthright Games and Entertainment became a partner of Bengal Warriors.
The 55-year-old actor has been around for more than 30 years now and has acted in 150+ films.
"I have always believed that sport plays a key role in shaping one's personality and health. I have admired how Star Sports has helped make Kabaddi so popular across the length and breadth of India and I am delighted to partner with Future Group to promote a homegrown sport like Kabaddi," said Akshay Kumar after partnering with Future Group.
Bengal Warriors' history in the PKL
Bengal Warriors did not make an impact in the first two seasons of PKL. In the third season, they finished in the fourth spot. However, their 4th season saw a major slump as they ended at the bottom of the table. The team's best performance came in the seventh season where they ended as the champion of the tournament. They had 16 wins and 5 losses from 24 matches in Season 7. This was their best-ever season to date. After finishing as the champion in the 7th edition, the team faced failure in the next two seasons and ended the last edition in the 11th spot.
Bengal Warriors will be looking to roar once again as we head close to the next edition of the Project. While the auction for the upcoming season is not yet announced, one can be sure that the franchise will look to revamp its whole team, considering how the past seasons went. The season 7 champions did let go of several players ahead of PKL 9 auction and revamped their team to fancy their chances for another trophy. However, their plan backfired in the last edition.
Also, in the last edition, they roped in former PKL-winning coach K Baskaran as their head coach. Former National Kabaddi Player Prashant Surve was appointed as the new assistant coach.
Interestingly, Baskaran and Captain Maninder Singh had worked together earlier. Baskaran was the coach of the Jaipur Pink Panthers in the first edition. At that time, Maninder Singh was his main raider.
We will have to wait for a bit to know if this duo would continue in the PKL 10 or if the management will look out for a new combination in order to improve the result.
