Saumraj Explains Why Indian Teams Wouldn’t Have Qualified For PMGC 2022

Professional Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) player Saumya “Saumraj” Raj recently expressed his belief that Indian teams would have performed well at the PUBG Mobile Global Championship (PMGC) 2022 if they had been given the opportunity to participate. Saumraj attributed the potential poor performance of Indian teams to the current block on BGMI in India, which has resulted in a lack of practice and official tournaments for Indian players.

Saumraj won the Battlegrounds Mobile India Series (BGIS) 2021 in 2022 and won the prestigious ‘Esports Athlete Of The Year’ award at the Loco India Gaming Awards 2022.

Saumraj explains why Indian teams would have performed poorly at PMGC 2022 

On July 28, 2022, the government of India suspended the game Battlegrounds Mobile India (BGMI) and removed it from the Google Play Store and Apple's App Store. Since then, there has been no official update from the game's publisher, Krafton, about its return or current state. The suspension of BGMI has resulted in a lack of official tournaments and a decrease in practice and engagement by professional players and content creators in the Indian esports scene.

Saumraj hosted a PUBG Mobile Global Championship (PMGC) 2022 watch party on the second day of the event. Before the start of the first match, Saumraj was analyzing the past performances of Indian BGMI teams in the Battlegrounds Mobile India Series (BGIS) 2021. During this session, one of his viewers curiously asked him how Indian teams would have performed in PMGC 2022 if they had the opportunity to play in the championship. Responding to this question, Saumraj laughed and said, “Indian teams wouldn’t even have qualified for PMGC 2022. Not a single team.” Justifying the reason behind his cryptic statement, Saumraj added, “Due to the current ban on the game, we are lagging one year behind other international teams. It would take us one year of practice to recover from it.”

Another viewer sarcastically said the game would be banned again after practicing for one year. Responding to this, Saumraj implied that he would quit if the game got banned again.

Recently, there has been a lot of positive news surrounding the return of BGMI. Numerous influential personalities from the Indian gaming community have claimed that the game would return in early 2022, with a high chance of returning in January. Furthermore, Krafton has also made a few moves to imply that it has been working actively to resume BGMI services in India. However, unfortunately, there has been no official announcement suggesting the game’s return or explaining its current state.