Tamil Thalaivas, having made their PKL debut in 2017, managed to make it to the playoffs only once in their six-year PKL history. For the remainder of five seasons, the team settled at the bottom half of the points table, which turns out to be a concerning factor.
However, the franchise has the perfect chance to turn the tables around this time as their thinktank would be aiming to make a perfect squad in order to stand a chance to lift their maiden silverware.
Interestingly, the Thalaivas retained their strong core of Narender, Sahil in the young players category. Furthermore, Aashish, skipper Sagar, Himanshu, and M Abishek have also been retained in the same category.
Additionally, in the Existing New Young Players category, Tamil Thalaivas went on to retain Nitesh Kumar, Nitin Singh, Ronak, and Vishal Chahal. Surprisingly, the franchise released their star raider, Ajinkya Pawar.
Narender, Thalaivas' best raider in the previous edition, accumulated 137 successful raids while Ajinkya Pawar managed to accumulate 110 successful raids. While the former has been retained, the latter was released.
In the defense section, Sahil Gulia and Sagar played an exceptional role in the previous edition, accumulating 64 and 61 successful tackles, respectively. The franchise managed to retain both defenders ahead of the PKL 2024 Auction.
With a new set of players about to join the strong core, the Thalaivas would be hoping to reverse their fortunes and make it big in the upcoming season.
All franchises combined retained a total of 88 players in three categories (elite retained players, retained young players, and existing new young players) ahead of the big auction. A player pool of 500+ including the 24 players from the two finalists of the Khelo India University Games 2024 will be a part of the auction.
Tamil Thalaivas: Retained Players List
Elite Retained Players: N/A
Retained Young Players: Narender, Sahil, Mohit, Aashish, Sagar, Himanshu, M Abishek
Existing New Young Players: Nitesh Kumar, Nitin Singh, Ronak, Vishal Chahal
Tamil Thalaivas: Released Players List
Masanmutu Lakshnanan, Himanshu Singh, Selvamani K, Ritik, Satish Kanan, Amirhossein Bastami, Mohammadreza Kaboudrahangi, Ajinkya Pawar, Himanshu, Jatin