The Telugu Titans had been the worst team in the Pro Kabaddi League from Season 8 to 10 and it didn’t seem as if that was going to change heading into the 11^th edition. They had a somewhat solid but unspectacular auction and it looked like another disappointing campaign was on the cards, but that hasn’t been the case.

The Titans have shocked one and all and find themselves at seventh in the standings with 10 wins and 54 points. They have won twice as many games this campaign as they did in the three previous ones combined and stand a great chance of finally ending their playoff drought. So, how exactly have they managed to do this? Well, let’s find out.

Raiding

To say the Titans’ raiding unit didn’t fare well last season would be an understatement. They were pretty poor in every aspect except when facing 4-5 defenders on the mat and that turns out to be the only one where there hasn’t been a major improvement in PKL 11.

While Pawan Sehrawat deserves a lot of credit for the Titans’ success on the raiding front, there is plenty of credit to go around. What really hurt the Titans last season was not having a quality second raider next to their star. No other raider on the team apart from Sehrawat was even able to put up 60 raid points in the season and that’s not a sign of a good raiding unit.

Fast forward to now, though, and the Titans have three who are above 90 in Sehrawat (92), Vijay Malik (143) and Ashish Narwal (97). Malik and Narwal have also stepped up in a big way with Pawan going down with an injury and I can only imagine how bad things would have gotten had he gotten injured in PKL 10.

Malik and Narwal are the ones who deserve all the credit for the turnaround in do-or-die situations. The former has a success rate of 75% in them while the latter is at 55.6%. The Titans snapped up Malik for just Rs. 20 lacs at the auction and Narwal for just Rs. 13 lacs and that’s looking like some fabulous piece of business now.

Defending

While the Titans have taken major strides from a raiding standpoint, they haven’t really on the defensive front. They have, in fact, taken a few steps back in each and every aspect.

The Titans had hoped they had significantly strengthened their defense when they landed Krishan Dhull for Rs. 70 lacs at the auction but he hasn’t had much of an impact thus far. Krishan has only recorded 18 tackle points and the man leading the charge for the Titans has instead been NYP Sagar Sethpal, who has 37 tackle points to his name. NYP-2 Ankit, meanwhile, has 32 tackle points, and in these two, the team potentially has two building blocks for the future of their defense.

Defense is certainly the area that the Titans need to look to upgrade moving forward and if they manage to do that and hold on to their raiding trio, perhaps they will win that elusive first PKL title in the coming years.

Featured Image Credit: PKL