PKL 9: Naveen Kumar, Aslam Inamdar to face off in Puneri Paltan-Dabang Delhi game

The two raiders are some of the best in the league when it comes to scoring bonus points.

Dabang Delhi KC is having a poor Pune leg losing both matches in the Pune leg. The reigning champions lost the last encounter against Tamil Thalaivas (38-49) and with this, the franchise has lost four successive games. Naveen Kumar got injured in the second half and it looks like it might take a few days for him to recover denting Dabang Delhi’s chances for playoffs. Dabang Delhi will play their next PKL 9 game against Puneri Paltan.

Puneri Paltan started their home leg with a tie against Haryana Steelers in a closely fought contest. Mohit Goyat was the star performer for Puneri Paltan scoring a super 10 with the next best raider being Akash Shinde scoring four points. Aslam Inamdar had an off-game and will like to get back to form in front of the home fans. 

Team News

Puneri Paltan

Raiders: Aslam Inamdar, Mohit Goyat, Pankaj Mohite, Akash Shinde, Shubham Shelke, Aditya Shinde

Defenders: Sanket Sawant, Fazel Atrachali (overseas player), Abinesh Nadarajan, Sombir, D Mahindra Prasad, Badal Singh, Alankar Patil, Rakesh Ram, Harsh Lad

All-Rounders: Mohammad Nabibakhsh (overseas player), Balasaheb Jadhav, Govind Gurjar

Dabang Delhi KC

Raiders: Naveen Kumar, Manjeet, Ashu Malik, Ashish Narwal, Suraj Panwar

Defenders: Ravi Kumar, Sandeep Dhull, Amit Hooda, Vishal, Anil Kumar, Monu, Dipak, Krishan, Vinay Kumar, Vijay, Mohammad Liton Ali, Aakash

All-rounders: Vijay, Tejas Patil, Reza Katoulinezhad

Head to Head

Dabang Delhi KC and Puneri Paltan have faced each other 18 times in the Pro Kabaddi League out of which, Dabang Delhi KC has won eight times and Puneri Paltan have won nine with one match ending in a tie.

Player to watch

Mohit Goyat has been a supporting raider to Aslam Inamdar and played a crucial role in most of the encounters in both raiding and defence in PKL 9. As the season passed by the performance of Mohit Goyat kept increasing and scored a super 10 in the last encounter against Haryana Steelers in the absence of star raider Aslam Inamdar.

Ashu Malik scored a second consecutive super 10 against Tamil Thalaivas and is turning out to be a star performer. In the absence of Naveen Kumar who got injured in the second half against Tamil Thalaivas, Ashu took over the primary raiding role and played his best. The trader is also good at taking bonuses which is an added bonus.

Key to Success

The defenders from Dabang Delhi KC were very poor in the last few encounters which is the main reason for the northern team losing four successive encounters. None of the main defenders Krishan Dhull, Ravi Kumar and Sandeep Dhull scored a single tackle point hurting the team badly. Krishan Dhull was at the top of the tackle points table in the first few weeks but has been off-colour since the end of the Bengaluru leg. The Delhi franchise needs to set the defence right else they cannot win games against raiding-heavy teams.

The raiding duo of Mohit Goyat and Aslam Inamdar need to fire simultaneously against Dabang Delhi’s defence which has been highly inconsistent. Aslam Inamdar especially has lost form but can regain back his confidence in this important match. In the absence of Naveen Kumar, Fazel Athrachali should look to keep Ashu Malik.

Did you know?

Fazel Athrachali had recently crossed the 400 tackle points mark ( present - 403). Overall the star defender has scored 407 points in the history of the Pro Kabaddi League.  

Broadcast - PKL 9

Time - 07:30 PM

Streaming - Star Sports / Disney + Hotstar