Tamil Thalaivas 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!

The Tamil Thalaivas enter their 3rd season needing to change their fortunes with another last place finish in Zone B in PKL6 and their first step was to retain the services of their leader Ajay Thakur and stalwart Manjeet Chhillar. The also retained Kenyan, Victor Obiero, which remains to be understood by many within the Kabaddi fraternity too and we hope that he is certainly utilized to justify the retention. The recently married Ajay Thakur will hope that lady luck smiles on the Thalaivas in this new campaign as he is too good a player to remain with a squad languishing at the bottom, as he nears the final phase of his playing career too. One of the biggest buys of the auction was made by the squad from Chennai as they sealed the raiding skills of the original poster-boy of Pro Kabaddi, Rahul Chaudhari who could for the first time have a 2 pronged lead raider combo in his team with Ajay Thakur, much like the lethal Pardeep + Monu combination that Patna possessed. Young Ajeet (cover) & Himanshu (left corner) are touted for big things in Pro Kabaddi and if they can be nurtured by Manjeet Chhillar well and utilized, the Tamil Thalaivas defense could look very compact with the more experienced purchases of Mohit Chhillar on the right corner and Ran Singh on the left corner too. 
 

The only real issue for the side is the lack of depth beyond their starting seven and beyond Rahul and Ajay in the raid department given that Shabeer is in the twilight of his career and they did not retain the likes of MS Athul or Prapanjan.

The biggest problem Tamil Thalaivas have faced in the past is clarity of leadership and that is still a major concern with Rahul Chaudhari, Ran Singh and Shabeer Bappu (all capable leaders) also being added to the squad and Ajay Thakur needs to be given freedom to lead the side over Manjeet and delegate with a single voice rather than be muddled by those around him. We could see Rahul Chaudhari flourish in these conditions since he won’t have the captaincy burden and could be used well by Ajay Thakur to form a great Left-Right raiding duo. The only real issue for the side is the lack of depth beyond their starting seven and beyond Rahul and Ajay in the raid department given that Shabeer is in the twilight of his career and they did not retain the likes of MS Athul or Prapanjan. The Coach’s role in this side will be immense as a man-manager to keep the squad united and winning vs losing matches early in the tournament could decide the fate of the mental approach to this Tamil Thalaivas unit.