PKL 9: Dabang Delhi to battle it out against Gujarat Giants

Defending champions have already won their opening encounter.

Gujarat Giants are coming into this encounter after a tied match against Tamil Thalaivas in the first encounter. The team showed some signs of good performance but need to show consistency throughout the match. On the other hand, Dabang Delhi is coming off winning the Pro Kabaddi League (PKL) season opener against U Mumba quite comprehensively.

Team News

Dabang Delhi

Raiders:

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

All-Rounder:

Vijay, Tejas Patil, Reza Katoulinezhad

Defenders:

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

Gujarat Titans

Raiders-

Chandran Ranjit, Mahendra Rajput, Dong Geon Lee, Purna Singh, Sonu, Pardeep Kumar, Rakesh, Gaurav Chhikara, Sohit, Sonu Singh, Sawin

All-Rounders:

Arkam Shaikh, Parteek Dhaiya, Rohan Singh, Shankar Gadai

Defenders:

Vinod Kumar, Young Chang Ko, Rinku Narwal, Baldev Singh, Sourav Gulia, Sandeep Kandola, Manuj, Kapil, Ujjval Singh

Head to Head

The two teams have met each other 10 times with Gujarat Titans coming out victorious on 5 occasions and Dabang Delhi winning three along with two tied games. Dabang Delhi won the last encounter when they met the last season (41-22).

Player to watch

Rakesh from Gujarat Giants will be the player to watch out for who scored a super 10 in the first match of the season against Tamil Talaivas. The defence department of Tamil Thalaivas had no clue against Rakesh in the first half scoring points at will. 

Naveen Kumar had done the bulk of the raiding in the absence of Vijay Malik. With Vijay not playing due to injury Naveen will have to shoulder both the captaincy and raiding which he had done well in the first match of the season.

Key to Success

Gujarat Giants 

Gujarat Giants looked good in their last encounter after coming back strongly in the final minutes when they were trailing by 3 points. Narendra scored more than 5 points through a bonus in the left flank. The Giants need to stop the opposition from taking easy bonuses which might hurt them in the final stages of the match.

Dabang Delhi

The defence had put their hand up and all the defenders supported Naveen Kumar. With the absence of Vijay, the secondary raiders and substitutes need to step up for Dabang Delhi, this will be a good opportunity to test the bench strength. 

Did you know

Rakesh Kumar crossed the 150 raid points mark in the last encounter against Tamil Talaivas scoring a super 10 with 13 raid points.

Broadcast

Time - 08:30 PM

Streaming -

Star Sports / Disney + Hotstar