Karbonn Smart KPL 2015: Hubli Tigers team profile

K L Rahul is the star batsman in Hubli Tigers dugout

Hubli Tigers made sure they retained India’s new opening batsman K.L Rahul and also held back left-arm seamer Sreenath Arvind, one of the backbones of the Karnataka Ranji Team.

The team management then added three players from Pool ‘A’ at the auction in Kunal Kapoor, S.L Akshay and Kranthi Kumar before settling down to pick opening batsman K.B. Pawan, Suraj Sampath, Prateek Jain, Naveen B and Chetan John Williams from Pool ‘B’ to form a good base for the team.

Rahul has been amongst runs off late and the Tigers will be banking on him to better his performance of last year for them when he emerged the top run getter of the KPL. He has proved that he is a batsman for all formats of the game and his hundred against Rockstars in 2014 was just a trailer to what can be expected of him.

Aravind has been rather unlucky with freak accidents and injuries being major thorns in him taking bigger strides in his cricketing career. However, the wily bowler has grabbed the opportunities that have come his way to still be in the reckoning.

Turning out for RCB as a replacement in 2015, Aravind claimed nine wickets in five outings with a four for two. Able to move the ball both ways and extract bounce, Aravind can be expected to trouble the best at Hubli and Mysore.

The Hubli Tigers have banked more on seamers and leaning on the experience of left arm spinner Balachander Naveen. A well balanced team with allrounders like Kranthi, Negi and Chetan Williams, the Tigers will look to roar through to the knock-outs!

Sushil Jindal’s passion for the game and the keenness to own a team was what saw the advent of the Hubli Tigers in 2014. In the year that they have been around, the Hubli Tigers have been able to bring about a family like atmosphere in their dressing room.

Team: K.L Rahul, Sreenath Arvind, Akshay SL, Kranti Kumar, Pawan K B, Naveen B, Sashi Shelar, Prateek Jain, Chetan John Williams, Kiran AM, Suraj Sampath, Kunal Kapoor, S Koushik, Dikanshu Negi, Mohammad Taha, Rohan Raju, Nishanth Shekhawat, Abhinav Manohar.

Team Owners: Sushil Jindal, Abhishek Jindal

CEO: Anutosh Poll

COO: Sharath Vatsa

Coach: Mansur Ali Khan, Vidyut Shivaramakrishnan

Assistant Coach: Sasi Kumar

Video Analyst: Srinivas

Physio: Arun