HYDERABAD: Cricket can take a back seat for now as
kabaddi is set to keep prime time viewers engaged with Season 7 of the
Pro Kabaddi League (PKL), which gets underway at the
Gachibowli Indoor stadium
here on Saturday.
A young and new-look
Telugu Titans will look to make a fresh beginning as they take on former champions
U Mumba in the inaugural match while defending champions Benguluru Bulls have their task cut out as they face three-time former champions
Patna Pirates in a potentially high-voltage clash. Hosts Telugu Titans will be without the services of 'Raid Machine' Rahul Chaudhari, who was with the franchise since the inception of PKL in 2014.
Rahul has been replaced by an equally explosive raider in Siddharth Desai, who was bought for a staggering price of Rs 1.45 crore.
Titans have been disappointing in PKL so far. Despite having all-time best raider Chaudhari in their ranks, Titans had failed to fire as a team and their best finish was third place in Season 2. Hence, the move to replace Chaudhari, PKL's top scorer with 876 points, with Desai, the best debutant raider in Season 6.
It will be interesting to see how the 28-yearold Siddharth, who scored 218 points in his maiden season for U Mumba last year, will fare here. Incidentally, Siddharth and the new head coach of the Titans, Gholamreza Mazandarani of Iran, were with U Mumba last season. "It's a fact that I know a lot of players in the U Mumba squad and their strengths and weakness. But that doesn't really matter. We have to play to our strengths. We have star raider Siddharth Desai in our side.
A lot depends on how he performs. Our main target is qualify for playoffs," said Mazandarani, who coached Iran to a stunning gold medal at the Jakarta Asian Games last year, ending India's 28-year golden run with a 27-18 semifinal win.
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