PKL 9: Patna Pirates will face Puneri Paltan in a do-or-die match

The last match between the two sides ended in a tie.

Puneri Paltan won a close battle against Dabang Delhi KC (47-44) with the raiding duo of Akash Shinde and Pankaj Mohite scoring super 10s respectively in the last match of the Pro Kabaddi League season 9. Puneri Paltan showcased their raiding depth in the absence of lead raiders (Mohit Goyat and Aslam Inamdar). Abhinesh Nadarajan the cover defender in defence showed improvements scoring a high 5.

Patna Pirates lost a crucial battle to Gujarat Giants (34-40) with Rohit Gulia registering his second consecutive super 10. Sachin Tawar provided Rohit with good support but was not at his best rather below par. For the first time Sunil the right-corner defender did not feature in the playing 7 who was one of the main players at the start of the season.

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

Puneri Paltan

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

All-Rounders: Mohammad Nabibakhsh, Balasaheb Jadhav, Govind Gurjar

Defenders: Sanket Sawant, Fazel Atrachali, Abinesh Nadarajan, Sombir, D Mahindra Prasad, Badal Singh, Alankar Patil, Rakesh Ram

Head to Head

Puneri Paltan and Patna Pirates have faced each other 18 times in the Pro Kabaddi League out of which, Puneri Paltan has won two matches whereas Patna Pirates has come out victorious on 13 occasions with three matches ending in a tie.

Player to watch

Sombir the right-corner defender from Puneri Paltan has been off-colour for the past few matches after having a good start to the season. Rohit Gulia is in excellent form scoring back-to-back super 10s and is an expert in taking bonus points. Sombir needs to be careful and not allow Gulia to control the match.

Chiyaneh the left-corner defender will be up against in-form Pankaj Mohite and Akash Shinde who scored super 10s in the last encounter against Dabang Delhi KC. Chiyaneh has been the most successful defender for Patna this season and shall be the player stopping both the Pune raiders.

Key to Success

Nabibaksh after a long break was once again given a chance ahead of the playoffs and the all-rounder made use of the limited opportunity scoring four raid points. He scored two crucial raid points which helped Pune delay the all-out. The Iranian shall score points both in attack and defence to book a place in playing 7.

Patna Pirates needs one of the tertiary raiders to step in and help the raiding department. Both Sachin and Rohit Gulia have done the bulk of the raiding with Mohit Goyat not offering enough support along with Anuj.

Did you know

Puneri Paltan has defeated Patna Pirates only once ( in six matches) since Pro Kabaddi League season 6.

Broadcast

Time - 07:30 PM

Streaming - Star Sports / Disney + Hotstar