Premier Handball League: All you need to know about Maharashtra Ironmen

Owned by entrepreneur and season sports investor, Punit Balan, Maharashtra Ironmen is one of the six teams of the upcoming inaugural Premier Handball League.

Punit Balan is a big-time Olympic sports enthusiast and is known for his investments across the sporting landscape in India.

"We believe in supporting the current and upcoming talent and our focus will be to unearth promising handball players from the region and nurture them so that they become the face of the sport in times to come," Punit said during the launch of the team Maharashtra Ironmen.

In the League, 6 teams represent six states with 17 players per team, including 14 Indian players and 3 foreign players.

Maharashtra Ironmen has signed the most important player winger Ankit Kumar who was a member of the Gold medal-winning Indian squads for the IHF Trophy in 2016 and 2018 and a silver medalist at the 2019 South Asian Games.

Among the three foreign players, the team has signed Iranian Right-back Jalal Kiani was a member of the Iranian national team in the Asian Games Olympics qualification matches for 2016, Handball World Championships and 2nd, and the place-winning Iran team for the Olympic Games.

The second player is the 17-year-old Russian goalkeeper, Aleksander Lesnik won so many awards as the best player of the 20th Traditional Intercity Memorial -2016, the best goalkeeper of the All-Runia Competition 2017, and the Best player of the Russian Team 2020.

The third player is Iraqi 27-year-old left-back Jasim Mohammed who is a member of the national Iraqi team.

The head coach for Maharashtra Ironmen is Sunil Kumar who also represented India as a coach in the senior Handball championships (Olympic Qualifiers) held at Qatar Doha 2019.

Squad

Goalkeepers: Alexander Lesnik, Rajat Khatkar, Naveen Deshwal

Defenders: Manjeet Kumar, Sumeet Kumar, Mohit Punia, Ankit Kumar, Mohammed Sohail Akhtar, Jalal Kiani, Vijay Thakur, Vishal Dabas, Jasim Mohammed

Wingers: Sunil Sharma, Ankit Kumar Left Wings: Sumit Ghanghas, Mitul

Pivot: Ranjeet Singh, Shubham Sharma

Foreign players- Jalal Kiani, Aleksandr Lesnik, and Jasim Mohammed

Coach- Sunil Kumar, Ajay Dabas