PKL 2025: Pawan Sehrawat chases comfort of old glory in second innings with Tamil Thalaivas
Less than 20 seconds remained on the clock. Just a point separated Tamil Thalaivas and Telugu Titans in their Pro Kabaddi League encounter. A successful tackle by the Titans would level scores and potentially send the game to a tiebreaker. The home side’s defenders went in for the ankle hold with the covers coming in for reinforcement. It all seemed timed to perfection.
All of a sudden, though, through a huddle of yellow jerseys, a hand emerged, desperately stretching to reach the mid-line. The cover defenders tried to drag him back, but they were a fraction too late.
Pawan Sehrawat had a Super Raid, and Tamil Thalaivas the win.
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For the star raider, there may have been some comforting familiarity about being able to come clutch in a season after a few years spent riding the highs and lows of the sport.
Back at the Thalaivas for a second stint after being picked in the auction for Rs. 59.50 Lakh, Pawan will hope for kinder fortunes this time around. In PKL’s ninth edition, when he donned the Thalaivas yellow after the franchise made him the most expensive player in PKL history, he suffered a season-ending injury in the very first match of the season. He moved to the Titans and now finds himself back with a new-look Thalaivas setup.
“Personally, I really like taking on a new challenge when I join a new team. I was in Tamil Thalaivas once before, but I wasn’t able to play properly. So it’s a challenge for me, and I love playing with a challenge, when someone in front of you has put their hope in you,” he said at a media interaction organised by JioHotstar.
Alongside him is former Jaipur Pink Panthers raiding ace Arjun Deshwal who have been settling into an encouraging partnership for the side in offense.
“We have very good players like Arjun Deshwal, Narender Kandola, Moein Shafaghi, and we’ve made a good combination and played so far in these two matches. We’ve performed well, and there’s a good rhythm.”
Pawan and Arjun have jointly shouldered the bulk of the responsibility for the Thalaivas raiding unit, accounting for nearly 83 percent of the team’s raids and just over 70 percent of its raid points thus far, and accordingly have racked up just over 70% of its raid points.
Arjun, however, slightly edges both metrics thus far, having attempted 38 raids to Pawan’s 29, while having correspondingly scored 24 raid points to the skipper’s 16.
This is a continuation of a trend from PKL 11 for Pawan. Playing for Telugu Titans, he attempted the second-most raids and scored the second-most raid points for the side behind Vijay Malik.
While the team insists that there is no main raider in the side on paper, Pawan noted that he has had a natural role change this year.
“There has been a slight change in role this year. I’m entering the mat with a slightly different role this year. That keeps happening, day-by-day, year-by-year,” he said. It is something Pawan has embraced, saying, “Rather than staying in your comfort zone, it’s better to step outside and learn something, and I’m getting to learn a lot, like about how the team can play.”
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Results have been mixed at the start of the season for Tamil Thalaivas. Pawan’s heroics in the dying seconds helped it overturn a seven-point deficit against Telugu Titans, but it would be on the receiving end of the same treatment against U Mumba, losing despite holding a nine-point lead at one stage.
As the side’s captain, and one of the most experienced players in the league, Pawan noted that there was much for the youngsters in the team to learn from this topsy-turvy start.
“In the first match, nobody thought that we would be able to lead with a seven or eight point deficit. In the second match, we had a nine point lead, and it went away,” he reflected. “The youngsters can learn that if you are behind, then never lose hope, and if you have a lead, then don’t assume you can’t be beaten.”
It may have started slightly up-and-down, but with an unrelenting schedule, and a leg of matches in front of a home crowd to look forward to later in the calendar, Tamil Thalaivas will no doubt be hoping it can lean on its captain to help convert its early season promise into bigger things.
Published on Sep 06, 2025