Acquiring Mohammadreza Shadloui Chiyaneh a calculated risk, say Gujarat Giants’ Sanjay Adesara

Gujarat Giants came into the Pro Kabaddi League auction with a clear plan and went all out to bring all-rounder Mohammadreza Shadloui on board for a whopping Rs 2.23 crore.

The Adani Sportsline-owned side’s investment in the Iranian made him the most expensive buy in this auction. The two-time PKL champion is the first player to go for more than Rs. 2 crore in three auction cycles.

“Shadloui deserves that kind of an all-out treatment, not (just) from us, (but) from anyone. He is a match-winner, a trophy-winner. We have been trying for the last two seasons to get him, but fell a little short. But this season, we made a strategy around it so that we can go all out with him,” Sanjay Adesara, the Chief Business Officer at Adani Sportsline, told  Sportstar.

The Giants identified a weak defence as an area to address in the auction and that’s where Shadloui came into the picture.

“The defence was something that we were trying to work on. Shadloui can take care of your left corner easily. We had retained Himanshu Singh as our right corner. So our corners were sorted. We went for young covers. So more or less, our defence is relatively better this season. Defence is something we wanted to secure to build a good team around, and we are satisfied with it,” he added.

A maverick, Shadloui has featured in 92 PKL matches and recorded 448 points, including 94 raid points and 354 tackle points. A force to reckon with on both ends of the mat, he has also registered 4 Super Raids in addition to 19 Super Tackles and 32 High 5s in his PKL career. He finished as the Best Defender in season 8 and 10.

“It was known that Shadloui will be one of the costliest players from the auction. He was the first player (on the auction roster). So it was very simple for us to go all out for him. And, for the rest of the scenarios, there were permutations and combinations. But more or less, we were on the track,” Adesara said.

While the team hopes to make the most of the biggest recruitment, it also has back-up plans in place.

“Shadloui takes care of 90 per cent of your defence requirements. It’s true that auction success is very different from success in the tournament. It’s all about taking calculative risks, and so far, we have been planning accordingly,” he said.