After back-to-back underwhelming performances in the last two seasons, Bengal Warriors aim to make a comeback in the Pro Kabaddi League 2023. At the auction this year, the Warriors have gone back to the experienced Maninder Singh to lead them in the upcoming season. InsideSport does a SWOT analysis of the team.
Also Read: PKL 10: PKL SWOT analysis of Pawan Sehrawat led Telugu Titans
Strength
Maninder Singh will be the team’s biggest strength. The team has showed faith in him by spending 2.12 crores. He has been consistently scoring over 200 raid points in the last four seasons.
Apart from Maninder, Bengal Warriors also bought back Srikanth Jadhav, who has also been a part of the side in the last season. With this the team has a good backup to Maninder.
Also Shubham Shinde was bought back by using the FBM card at the auction. With Nitin Rawal also in the side, the team also has a great corner combination that will be another big strength.
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Weakness
Bengal Warriors’ weakness also lies in the raiding department. Over the seasons Maninder has done the bulk of the raiding for the team. This season too, apart from Srikanth Jadhav, the team does not have other big name to lend support in the department.
In terms of the defence, the weakness lies in the cover position. Vaibhav Garje is relatively inexperienced, having made his debut just last year. Other defenders like Dipak Shinde Shreyas Umbardand will be part of the league for the first time in their career. So there is this relative inexperience in defence.
Opportunities
This season gives an opportunity for Shrikanth Jadhav to step up. He has been under the shadow of Maninder last season. This season too he has to play the second fiddle. However if he rises up and matches the performance of Maninder that will augur well not only for the Bengal Warriors, but to Shrikanth Jadhav itself as a player., who has been there in the league for quite sometime now.
Threats
The prominent names in the team have all been mostly part of the side over the last two seasons. In both the previous seasons the performance of the Bengal Warriors has been nothing short of poor.
It remains to be seen how the same core group of players put the previous performances aside and start the campaign afresh.
Bengal Warriors – Squad
Raiders: Maninder Singh, Shrikant Jadhav, Suyog Gaikar, Guhan Raju, Parshant Kumar, Aslam Saja, Vishwas Gouda, Chai Ming Chang, Maharudra Garje, Nitin Kumar, Akshay Bodake
Defenders: Shubham Shinde, Vaibhav Garje, Akshay Kumar, Aditya Shinde, Shreyas Umbardand, Dipak Shinde
All-Rounders: Nitin Rawal, Akshay Bhoir.
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