Here’s a look at the Tamil Thalaivas Squad for Season 8
– Ambrish Upadhyay
Tamil Thalaivas having the tremendous trio of Rahul Chaudhari, Ajay Thakur & Manjeet Chhillar in PKL 7 failed to perform as a unit and ended their campaign at the last position in the points table with just 37 points.
Tamil Thalaivas released their elite players Rahul Chaudhari, Ajay Thakur & Manjeet Chhillar before PKL 8 auction which surprised the Tamil fans.
The performance of trio was Rahul Chaudhari (130 raid points), Ajay Thakur (58 raid points) & Manjeet Chhillar (37 tackle points) which did not justify with the name they had made in previous years.
The release of the local boy V Ajith Kumar who made a remarkable debut for Tamil Thalaivas in PKL 7 scoring 121 raid points with a tremendous scoring rate.
The most notable question was why Tamil Thalaivas collapsed after having the best & experienced unit, the possible answer for it can be the inconsistency & lack in teamwork which resulted in a forgettable end of their PKL 7 campaign.
With having the largest purse amount (4.16 crore) before the start of the PKL 8 auction , Tamil Thalaivas were expected to rope in some big names in the auction including the “Record Breaker” Pardeep Narwal & the “Showman” Rahul Chaudhari.
Starting with the raiding department, Tamil Thalaivas is looking a power packed raiding side under the presence of Manjeet Dahiya (92 lakh), K Prapanjan (71 lakh), Athul MS (30 lakh), Ajinkya Pawar (19.5 lakh) & Maharashtrian all-rounder Sourabh Tanaji Patil (15 lakh).
The inclusion of Manjeet Dahiya who can be utilized as an all-rounder could be a positive sign for Tamil Thalaivas. Manjeet scored 151 total points in PKL 7.
Having a season disturbed by injury , K Prapanjan also managed to cross the 100 raid points in PKL 7.
The young raiders Sourabh & Ajinkya Pawar were also impressive on their appearances.
Talking about the defence unit, it is looking pretty strong under the presence of Surjeet Singh , Sagar Krishna & Santhapanaselvam.
The young lads Sagar & Himanshu also impressed the fans previous season.
Tamil Thalaivas signed Surjeet in a huge amount of 75 lakh rupees.
Surjeet Stands 5th in the most points tackle points scored overall with 278 tackle points & he is also the defender with most number of High 5 in PKL history (27*).
Surjeet will be leading the defence as he will be the most experienced player in the squad, most probably Tamil Thalaivas can also assign him the captaincy role.
Tamil Thalaivas had to build it’s squad from squad at the player auction , it would be interesting to watch how this newly formed squad will perform as a unit in PKL 8.