Lee-coached Torpedoes raring to go

With a two-time Olympic medallist, David Lee, as the head coach, the Bengaluru Torpedoes will be eager to begin their quest for the Prime Volleyball League title, starting February 4 at the Koramangala Indoor Stadium here.

The new-look Torpedoes, who boast of an ideal mix of youth and experience, will face defending champions Kolkata Thunderbolts in the season 2 opener. The Bengaluru team had finished fifth in the previous edition.

Retained star attacker Pankaj Sharma has been named the captain.

Besides, the franchise has roped in Alireza Abalooch of Iran and Tsvetelin Tsvetanov of Bulgaria from the international player’s draft to further strengthen their attack wing.

The home team will have four Karnataka boys led by Vinayak Rokhade (Belagavi), Tharun Gowda (Hassan), Sudheer Shetty (Mangalore) and Srajan Shetty (Udupi). While Vinayak and Srajan will turn out for Bengaluru for a second year running, Tharun and Sudheer were bought from Kolkata and Hyderabad teams respectively at the players' auction.

As for USA's Lee, who played for Calicut Heroes last year as a middle blocker, is excited to don the coaches' hat for the first time in his illustrious career.

“I have the advantage of playing in the first season as a player and have made notes about the positive and negative points of almost all the players in the League. I am going to use this experience to get maximum results for our team,” said Lee, who is a three-time Olympian with a gold in the 2008 Beijing and a bronze in the 2016 Rio Games.

“The boys are working hard and are in fine shape. I think we have a heady concoction of attack and defence which should augur well to put us in the reckoning,” he added.

After their opening match against Kolkata, the hosts face Ahmedabad Defenders on Feb 9 before taking on Mumbai Meteors on Feb 12. The eight-team league then moves to Hyderabad for the second phase of the tournament.

Squad: Alireza Abalooch, Tsvetelin Tsvetanov, Sethu TR, Mujeeb MC, Jishnu PV, Ibin Jose, Nisam Muhammed A, Sudheer Shetty, Vyshak Renjith M, Pankaj Sharma, Vinayak Rokhade, B Midhun Kumar, Tharun Gowda, Srajan Shetty. Coach: David Lee.