PKL 9: Bengal Warrior will bank on Maninder Singh against UP Yoddhas

The 32-year-old raider has 39 points in his previous two games.

Bengal Warriors are coming into this encounter with a win against Gujarat Giants (45-40). Maninder Singh the star raider scored 20 raid points and in the past few games has been scoring points consistently. Girish Maruthi Ernak was back to his usual form scoring four tackle points against Gujarat but needs to show consistency as against Tamil Thalaivas the defender couldn't score a single point. Bengal Warriors will next play UP Yoddhas in their PKL 9 game.

UP Yoddha currently occupy the 11th spot in the points table and after a positive start to the season aren't able to convert their performances into wins. They are one of the star-studded teams in the PKL having quality raiders and defenders but the combination hasn’t worked yet. With Pardeep Narwal taking over the captaincy the team should look to start fresh. 

Team News

Bengal Warriors

Raiders: Maninder Singh (c), Shrikant Jadhav, Akash Pikalmunde, Suyog Gaikar, R Guhan, Parshant Kumar, Aslam Thambi,

Defenders: Girish Maruti Ernak,  Surender Nada, Amit Sheoran, Parveen Satpal, Shubham Shinde, Sakthivel R, Soleiman Pahlevani, Vaibhav Garje,

All-Rounders: Deepak Hooda, Ashish Sangwan, Vinod Kumar, Ajinkya Kapre, Rohit, Manoj Gowda, Balaji D

UP Yoddhas

Raiders: Pardeep Narwal, Surender Gill, Nitin Tomar, Anil Kumar, Mahipal, Rohit Tomar, Aman, Durgesh Kumar, Rathan K, Gulveer Singh

All-Rounders: Gurdeep, Nehal Desai, Nitin Panwar

Defenders: Nitesh Kumar, Sumit, Ashu Singh, Shubham Kumar, Abozar Mohajermighani, Babu M, Jaideep

Head-to-Head

Bengal Warriors and U.P. Yoddhas have faced each other ten times in the Pro Kabaddi League out of which, Bengal Warriors have won four whereas U.P. Yoddha has come out victorious on three occasions with three matches ending in a tie.

Player to watch 

Pardeep Narwal has been playing second fiddle to Surinder Gill but can play the role of the primary raider as well in PKL 9. After reaching the 1400 raid points mark the raider has not scored much and is substituted frequently. Surinder Gill needs to have good support who has been scoring at a good pace else it is impossible for him to win matches single-handedly.

After an excellent start to season 9, the experienced defender slid down showing inconsistency. In the last match, the defender went on to score four tackle points but the unsuccessful rate has been high. Surinder Gill is in red-hot form and will be targeting Girish Ernak in the right corner position both for bonus and touchpoints.

Key to Sucess

Deepak Niwas Hooda and Shrikant Jadhav need to raid and score more raid points and help Maninder Singh against the experienced defensive unit of Nitesh Kumar, Sumit, and Ashu. If any of the three defenders gets back to form then Maninder Singh alone cannot score points and has to be distributed among the three.

Both Surinder Gill and Pardeep Narwal should look to target Girish Ernak who is prone to unsuccessful tackles. If the UP Yoddhas raider sends Ernak to the bench frequently then the inexperience in defence will definitely help UP score more raid points and can win the match comfortably.

Did you know

Shrikanth Jadhav from Bengal Warriors recently crossed the 600 points (raiding+defence) mark in the Pro Kabaddi League.

Broadcast - PKL 9

Time - 08:30 PM

Streaming - Star Sports / Disney + Hotstar