PKL 9: Patna Pirates look to correct course against Tamil Thalaivas

Both teams enter this clash on the back of a defeat in their previous match.

Tamil Thalaivas and Patna Pirates clash in the opening match of a double-header Wednesday. The Thalaivas lost their last encounter against Bengaluru Bulls in the southern derby (34-40). The game was even-stevens till the last ten minutes but under pressure, Tamil Thalaivas made many errors costing them the match. Narender as usual scored another Super 10 and is having an excellent outing in his maiden PKL season.

Patna Pirates suffered their first defeat in the Pune Leg against U Mumba (23-36) in a one-sided encounter. Sachin Tawar had an off-game, but none of the other raiders could take up the responsibility and score points except Rohit Gulia who is making a comeback after a small injury. 

Team News

Patna Pirates

Raiders: Sachin, Monu, Anand Tomar, Sushil Gulia, Vishwas S, Rohit, Ranjit Naik, Anuj Kumar

Defenders: Neeraj Kumar, Sunil, Thiyagarajan Yuvaraj, Manish, Shivam Chaudhary, Naveen Sharma

All-Rounders: Rohit Gulia, Sajin C, Sager Kumar, Abdul Insamam, Mohammadreza Chiyaneh, Daniel Odhiambo

Tamil Thalaivas

Raiders: Pawan Sehrawat, Ajinkya Ashok Pawar, Himanshu, Jatin, Himanshu

All-rounders: Thanushan Laxmamohan, Visvanath V, K Abhimanyu

Defenders: Sagar, Sahil, M Abishek, Mohit, Himanshu, Ashish, Md Arif Rabbani, Arpit Saroha, Ankit

Head-to-Head

Tamil Thalaivas and Patna Pirates have faced each other 11 times in the Pro Kabaddi League. Patna Pirates have won six matches whereas Tamil Thalaivas has come out victorious on three occasions with two matches ending in a tie.

Player to watch

Sunil has had a good season in the right corner position and has been in the top 10 defenders list on a consistent basis. In the last encounter, Narender couldn't score a single point from the left flank and was tackled successively by Saurabh Nandal and ultimately slowing down the pace. Similarly, Sunil needs to stop Narender and keep him off the bench to take the upper hand.

Sahil Gulia after a good start to PKL season 9 has not performed to his best with too many unsuccessful tackles. Sachin Tawar is the only experienced raider to score points consistently and Sahil will have his task cut out to silence Sachin. If the left-corner defenders succeeds then the southern side will have the upper hand.

Key to Success

Patna Pirates do not have a strong unit apart from Sachin and Rohit Gulia (coming back from injury). Tamil Thalaivas defenders especially the cover duo of Mohit and Abhishek should play conservatively and tackle Sachin keeping him out of the mat for the majority of the time. 

Patna Pirates cover defenders have had a poor outing in PKL season 9 and the Tamil Thalaivas raiders may look to attack them more than the corner duo of Chiyaneh and Sunil. With both Ajinkya and Narender not tall, the covers should be wary of the threat as both the raiders barely score touchpoints but shall look to exploit the negatives of Patna.

Did you know?

Sachin Tawar has scored more than 50 per cent of the raid points for Patna Pirates in Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) season 9 to date.

Broadcast

Time - 07:30 PM

Streaming - Star Sports / Disney + Hotstar